The Reign Of Kindo

Rhythm, Chord & Melody

[1/5]

Rising from the ashes of post-rock romanticists This Day & Age, this Buffalo quintet replaced departed frontman Jeffrey Martin with TD&A bassist Joseph Secchiaroli and split the difference between jazz-fusion, the atmospheric melancholy of Keane and pre-digested chum that smells like Josh Groban-only Secchiaroli’s radio-ready croon has less character than a hospital room and half the warmth. Sailing the seas of AC cheese like Carnival Cruises, you’re begging for an outbreak of salmonella to turn the ship around. The tepid rhymes (“The sun has found its way/Into someone else’s day”) lounge like nut logs in jazzy, piano-driven arrangements. Busy, jazz-drum undercurrents are anxious enough for an I.R.S. waiting room, and their attempts at blue-eyed soul (“Something In the Way That You Are”) make Maroon 5 sound like the Four Tops. Lungs, heart and stomach, like Rhythm, Chord & Melody, are icky lifeless gunk without anything to animate them. (ONE ELEVEN) Chris Parker