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Kyle Andrews, Real Blasty, 2008 (Elephant Lady Records, Indie)
Nashville-based indie phenom Kyle Andrews has just released a full-length masterpiece entitled Real Blasty. Self-produced and recorded in a bedroom or two, Real Blasty is one of the best records of 2008, and is destined to become a classic. During the past year, Andrews has been performing many of these new songs on the Nashville club circuit, and although we all knew that he'd "gone electric," nobody could have predicted the angst-ridden brilliance delivered on this new release. Real Blasty is over-produced in the best possible way; it's loaded down with vocal effects, alien attack sounds, drum machines, synthesizers, and driving electric guitars. Yet, somehow Andrews still manages to capture an organic and raw emo-driven sound. "Take it to Heart," for example, begins with a very Lennon-esque organic piano accompanied only by sparse electric guitars and Andrews' lone vocal. The chorus invites a bevy of other instruments and the song crescendos with a trippy explosion of sounds reminiscent of 70s-era Styx--it's brilliant. "Take it to Heart" and many other songs on Real Blasty were performed entirely by Andrews himself. The record has a gloriously darker side as well, including "I Wanted to Paint a Rainbow" and "A Constant Wavering Between the Real and the Abstract," which recalls early Cure, "Cut and Paste" recalling the best of Nirvana, and "Tennessee Torture Dreams," which has a raw Pixies edge. Real Blasty has so many flavors, and yet it all adds up to Kyle Andrews--it's his mind and his fingertips, and he may just be a 21st century Mozart. — Vincent Wynne, August 26, 2008
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