TRCK REVIEW: Kissling - One Night Stand

Manila, being the first place that I watched tons of gigs, has always offered wonderful music and to some extent — underrated bands. Bands that are so attached to the city that you wanted to stay in the scene longer, just to complete the full experience. The combination of historical footings and music from Manila is just outright lingering. Well, my love for Manila doesn’t cover Intramuros-based band, Kissling. I’ve been listening to them since early 2016 and I’m quite sure that this band hasn’t identified what kind of music they want to focus on with. Compared to Flying Lugaw, who watched this band once (which he furiously said “this band is crossed out of my list of the bands where I do not plan to see them live again” - that’s his version of TBH) I’ve watched Kissling live twice or thrice already. I always believed that their early materials encountered troubles in recording — which I didn’t take against them just because I think the recording at that time was really faulty and affected the quality of the entire song/s, it was unfair for me to hate it that much (check their Spotify account for reference).

Just to streamline things, this review is about their new song One Night Stand released last January. I know this write-up is kinda late and considering that this band played in UP Fair — it doesn’t have any effect or bearing at all. The song went longer than it should have, I’m guessing 5 loops max. It lacks vocal hooks and the sections sounded like it was repeated thrice resulting in a monotonous flow. The vocals were just linear in terms of progression, like a dead straight line. From the tom drums, bass lines and surfy electric guitars, it’s just obvious that they’re heavily influenced by various bands (Kidding! it’s just Orange and Lemons, notice the 2nd verse of the song). One Night Stand’s sections were just ‘cut and paste(d)’ three times then boom a 4-minute song. The chorus and refrain were just too dragging for me. The instrumentation was just run-of-the-mill, there were no signs of section change.

I just wish that this band finds their own music. I really hate how Kissling tries to imitate their idols, I mean if you gonna rip off something, do it well — not this kind of bootleg dreck, if not then burn your guitar and hands. Please do invest some time in writing your instrumentation