i’m not going to pretend i can really hear the lyrics. But then, that’s not what drew me to Australian band Re:Enactment in the first place. They’re one of a sizeable number of a projects i discovered following first contact with Ektoise, whose assorted members have been active under a plethora of musical guises. The specific point of connection here is James Grundy, who together with Chloë Cooper, Jacob Hicks, Sam Mitchell and Shane Rudken put out a smattering of releases as Re:Enactment in the late ’00s / early ’10s. (This actually makes them contemporaneous with Purity Device – the early version of what would be renamed Ektoise in 2010 – whose fascinating output has sadly vanished from the face of the earth.) From what i can recall, i first encountered Regicide, a brash EP dating from 2008. Featuring four songs that punch and push along, driven by a nuanced take on indie rock, gently garnished with traces of electronics, they occasionally lurch sideways or continue beyond the confines of conventional song structures, along the way undergoing unexpected stylistic evolutions. It’s a bold, lengthy EP, but Kittens, released earlier the same year – and seemingly their debut – despite being shorter nonetheless significantly ups the ante.
It certainly packs a bigger and more irregular punch. Opening track ‘Late Nights with Sally & Gerald’ is massively pumped-up, each beat practically thumped out, but in contrast to the rock pulses that powered Regicide, here they flex as they move, and the guitars have a razor edge that’s sounds downright dangerous. The increased focus in the choruses, carrying an actual tune, only highlights the extent to which the verses – aside from those buzzsaw guitars – are pretty much bereft of pitch, the vocals a stop-start procession of spoken / shouted / sprechstimme bursts. Towards the end of the song, when the voices stop, the guitars now adopt their approach, creating a lovely paradox of halting propulsion.
‘Arctic Circle’ combines opposites. For the verses the accompaniment is relatively gentle while the vocals sound desperately forced; only the middle 8s and bridges are clear and relaxed, as in the choruses everything is ramped up, the voices now so embedded in the texture it’s as if the group is a single large mass. As such, the words barely survive through the combined forces surrounding them. There’s more clarity in ‘Death Lives’, with static verses and only slightly more mobile choruses. The song is practically an elaborated drone, though it’s broken up by a nicely unexpected episode halfway through when the entire band vanishes, creeping back gradually while the vocals enjoy a rare moment in the spotlight.
The highlight of Kittens is closing track ‘Thems Burnt Puppies’, where synths burn and shine through the rock trappings, tilting it closer to the world of Ektoise. The percussion is punchier than ever, the vocals filtered and attenuated, sounding from deep within, and while there’s again a dronal suggestion here it’s the basis for a much more dramatic, large-scale ebb and flow between verse and chorus. The middle 8 initially breaks down in 8-bit blips before veering the other way, a blaze of overcompressed rock overload. There’s the best kind of delirium at play here; ‘Thems Burnt Puppies’ is anthemic and supercharged, before a return of the blips and a guitars unexpectedly project ever-softening razor notes far out into the beyond.
Released in February 2008, Kittens is available as a free download from the Re:Enactment Bandcamp site.
