Listen to KALI MASI
I don’t like punk.
Ok, so there are punk bands that I love. There are punk shows that are in my top 10 gigs of all time even. But as a very general rule, I don’t like punk. I don’t know if it’s the speed or the sneer or the storytelling, but it’s just never been a genre that sucks me all the way in.
I don’t like punk, but I love Kali Masi.
The Chicago quartet originally formed as The Howl in 2012 but, due in part to the sheer amount of similarly-named bands, switched to their current moniker, which is the name of a disease-resistant chicken, I shit you not. Their first album proper, 2017’s ‘Wind Instrument’, was great, but their latest work, ‘[laughs]’ is something else. You can hear the change, the spark, in the first few seconds too. There’s a lightness of touch. There’s a variety of influences- I catch garage, Midwest emo, and indie rock and more. There’s a certain special kind of melancholy in Sam Porter’s delivery. And Porter is telling stories, sure, but he’s also twisting words, and turning phrases, and nothing is on the nose, or at least i’m too stupid to tell if it is. Try this on for size- “I heard a sad song in a grocery played over High School Shooting Mourning Shoppers. The Still Life of bruising fruit cloaked us in its sweet perfume.” Oof!
The first track doesn’t even have to finish and I’m all in.
I don’t like punk. But I love Kali Masi.
For fans of Spanish Love Songs, The Gaslight Anthem, Walter Schreifels, and punk rock with a difference.