Death of the Party isn't really Kudu's first album, but we suspect that's what they'd tell us if we asked. An earlier incarnation of the band found them trying on a dress of an entirely different shade, and while their eponymous debut is just fine for relaxing in, say, a smoke-filled room, the electronic tendencies they hint at on that first album come out swinging in a blur of fishnet and leather on Death of the Party.
MP3: Kudu - "Suite Life"
The album's opener, "Hot Lava," betrays their influences nicely. Traces of Siouxsie & the Banshees and latin funk culminate in a lascivious hook about shaking and blowing, but it's the next track over that finally puts out. "Suite Life" opens with a speaker-rattling bass and jungle beat that's a perfect match for front-wraith Sylvia Gordon's come-hither vamping. She even spits a little rhyme before the chorus thrusts you in the general direction of her penthouse.
MP3: Kudu - "Bar Star"
The clear standout comes two tracks later. "Bar Star" is palpable Chicago post-house that always seems to make it into most of my sets. Whispered Salt-n-Pepa references, handclaps (I'm a sucker for those), and lyrics about someone with "a rhinestone rocket ship and disco balls"? We're practically all danced out.
MP3: Kudu - "Let's Finish"
An album that relies so heavily on beats and synths is bound to take it easy at some point for fear of pummeling us, and that's what happens in the second half of Death of the Party. Overblown electronics and histrionic operatics make way for fuzzy washes of synth and tinkling harmonics over falsetto come-ons, but it's a slick and easy trudge to the finish line. Just short of, actually, because it's those last few inches Gordon's begging for on "Let's Finish" that are going to bring it on home for Kudu. The street sounds of their native New York introduce the slithery affair, and that descending stab in the background seems to be beckoning you lower, lower. It's a production we know Prince would be proud of in so many different ways, and who are we to argue with that?
