Kiria - One CD

Hear The Track Here

Being a qualified OB (Ed: Old Bastard) I'm pretty stuck in my ways and its very rare for me to step out of my wrinkly comfort zone but every once in a while something inspires me. Take this blog for example. I've been writing it for over four years and whadda ya get for it? Pages and pages and pages of this kind of inane drivel. Only once have I ever featured a video on here, and only once have I featured such a modern device as a piccie. Both, I guess it doesn't need to be said, are from good looking women but that's probably just me trying to get my DOB badge (Ed: Dirty Old etc). The reason I featured Kiria (she was the piccie) was because she is a) a good singer and songwriter and b) she has a great image. Or at least that's my reason, officially anyway, for saying (an a furtive DOB kind of way) this is what she looks like. I'd be putting a picture of her up here again except I can't be arsed, just follow the link and you'll see what I mean. (Ed: Gilmore!! You ******* sexist!! Isn't this supposed to be about the music, get with it man!!!)

When I reviewed her very first single - Radio (October 2008) - I was most impressed with the energy and drive the whole band had (Ed: see how easy this is once you get past the eye candy) and am a bit surprised that it's taken so long to get an album out. Still, I'm just happy to get one (thank you Alison from Koochie Koo) and it has had a severe mauling since it dropped into the letterbox of my bijou hovel. OK, I'm biased because, in effect, Kiria is a local band - literally - and they play the kind of music I actually go and see. It doesn't hinder matters that they have outstanding eye candy but ultimately the kind of audience these local (London) bands play to are some of the hardest in the world to please, and that's where the music matters. By the time you roll onto the CD version of Radio (track three as it happens), it's obvious that Kiria has some serious songs on offer, all encased in an incredibly live and vibrant mix. Radio, btw sounds even better to me now that it did when I wrote the original review and gave it a Must Have.

Musically Kiria (a full band consisting of Kiria (vocals/guitar), Steve Rooney (drums), Evil Eden (bass), Jessie May (violin) and Tony Morrisson (lead guitar) ) get a lot of influence from punk and high energy rock, as well as pop so pretty much all twelve tracks on this CD zip by as if their asses are on fire (with one exception) and even now after almost two weeks of hearing this shiny little beauty I'm still finding bits I missed. Great tracks and good songs? Damn, where do I start? Radio, obviously is a highpoint but so is Make Up, the track immediately after it. Mirror Of You could give Lily Allen a run for her money and IMHO show that this band would go down great in a festival, but I could easily say the same about every other track on this CD. Massively, overwhelmingly commercial as hell and I'm loving it. I'm aware that I am fatally biased in this review but when I look at the current UK commercial market, and listen to this CD I get a really severe disconnect. Wtf, does she have to do? REALLY have 'Live Sex on Stage' (Ed: that's track twelve btw, not Gilmore going off on one.)

Get the right attitude. MUST HAVE.