Collectors of music and avid readers have at least one thing in common; they both understand the importance of an enticing title. One night, as I was sitting on a dorm-room floor, a friend of mine said, “Sam, you’ll love this band.” I asked, “What are they called?”
He said “Rainbow Kitten Surprise.”
Naturally, I laughed out loud. His response was something I find myself saying a lot when I suggest music to others: “No—I know, I know, but just listen!”
The only appropriate part of the name “Rainbow Kitten Surprise” (or “RKS”) is the word “surprise.” The band’s music is folk, indie, hip-hop, psychedelic rock, spoken word and so much more. The members look like cowboys or hipsters or something in-between. When I read that frontman Sam Melo and guitarist Darrick “Bozzy” Keller started out by playing in coffee shops, I laughed out loud again. “Of course they did,” I thought.
But the band has come a long way from open-mic night. Their latest album “How to: Friend, Love, Freefall” is growing more and more popular, probably because the collection of songs is at once ethereal, lovable, clever, and purely human.
“Pacific Love,” is a short introduction that a listener will wish was longer. Overlapping voices echo beautifully for about 24 seconds. The first full track is “Mission to Mars.” Immediate is a steady, gentle beat. The song is simple and relaxing yet quickly-paced and engaging.
The album’s most well-loved single (and the first “RKS” song I became obsessed with) is “Fever Pitch.” The first word is “Hallelujah,” which might remind a listener of Leonard Cohen or an aging man behind a podium on a long forgotten Sunday morning, but the pace picks up quickly. The song has an unmistakable call-and-response gospel feel, but also an early hip-hop bridge, and poetic lyrics. It is anything but predictable.
Just as catchy but wildly different is “It’s Called: Freefall.” This one is a head-nodder, waxing and waning in intensity. The clever lyrics are about a lonely man trying to make conversation with the devil, who asks him, “Why you been calling this late? It’s like 2 a.m.”
“Holy War,” as the title suggests, is a more serious piece, about the American trend to support religious “purification” abroad.
“Matchbox” is much more casual and fun. A song about a regular guy sitting around in “the back of a 15 passenger van” performing “passive-aggressive magic tricks, like that’s not the card that I would’ve picked, but it’s your life to live like how you’d like to live.”
After “Moody Orange” and “Hide,” both simple, emotional, and lovable songs, is a personal favorite, “When it Lands.” It starts out with a foot-tapping beat, quickly overlapped with a head-nodding beat. About halfway through the song, the pace picks up sweeping underneath rhythmic talk-singing. By the end, things have slowed down and the tapping along evolves to gentle swaying. The song is somehow multiple genres and moods all at once.
Truly, truly, quite a surprise is “Rainbow Kitten Surprise.” I can honestly say I never expected to be so obsessed with this group, but I hope that everyone else is, too. Really soon.
