Reviews
It's hard to miss a name like The Sexy Accident. Score points for a catchy moniker. Guitarist and lead singer Jesse Kates, bassist Patrick Fent, and drummer Daniel Torrence are power pop pugilists fighting to express their views on those human strengths and weaknesses - love, lust, loss, and infidelity - that make life more than a to-do list. The band's latest album, Kinda Like Fireworks, shows their finesse at delivering tightly composed pop songs that employ unusual time signatures and catchy hooks.
Ringleader Jesse Kates isn't new at the recording game. He's progressed from two instrumental albums as a member of Whitford to Sleight of Hand, a solo record of loop-based guitar music. Next, Kates formed The Sexy Accident and released Tourism, an album of indie pop with chewy hooks billed as Weezer meets Elvis Costello.
Kinda Like Fireworks follows closely in the footsteps of that Weezer meets Costello comparison. Lead track "Baby, It's Not Cheating" jangles hard like a Ma Bell plastic telephone. The vocals and music jut with a herky-jerky pace, but it works once Kates finds the right gear.
"My Girl" is immediately catchy with its quick guitar hook, peppy drumming, easy-to-digest lyrics, and Kates' staccato vocal delivery. "Gardener, Gibbet, Misery" slows down the pace and surges with emotional intensity. It's honest and naked, stripped down to a guitar, bass line, and superb drumming that add crisp context between breaks in the singing.
"Flirting With Disaster" rampages like Godzilla moshing across Tokyo in emo-power pop mode as Kates sings about lust for a friend.
"Hey You" ditty bops on a great beat. Kates' choppy guitar buzzes with a hornet's nest of angst as he snips with hurt about the frustration of long distance between two people. These aren't weighty subjects until you realize that something similar happened to you, or might, someday, somewhere. Then, it all makes sense. The drums and bass and guitar kick in behind that near snarl of vocals. Those two words - Hey You - become the most eloquent address, statement, accusation, and pleading ever uttered.
The compact hits keep coming in short order with firecracker pop of "Morning Drive," the soft-edged longing of "Lonely Days," and the poignant narrative of "Skies."
This record rocks with the enthusiasm of a hormonal teenager, but with the perspective of an older brother who has gone down the rocky path of love and loss. Kinda Like Fireworks is a fun, energetic listen that plays out the thrill and ache, the scathing moments and soothing memories, that make us pursue relationships.
- Pete Dulin, present magazine
Kansas City’s music scene is known for its hard-ass bands. Groups as tough as railroad spikes serving up hard metal, hard alt-rock, hard punk and even hard country. It’s a foundation set decades ago as our provincial, Midwest location made it difficult for an act to get known without making some serious noise. In a sea of ultimate fighters, what’s a clean, shiny pop band to do? If it’s The Sexy Accident, they come up with a confusing name and just try their best to let the songwriting do the talking.
With “Kinda Like Fireworks” the Kansas City trio takes a deep breath, shuts their eyes and dives into the mix with short songs, jangly guitars and the least-threatening vocals on this side of the Mississippi. Singer Jesse Kates has kind of a Smoking Popes thing going on, but the group doesn’t go for that huge wall-of-distortion sound. It’s a pregrunge style that evokes the new-wave songwriters of the ’80s, clean-cut pop artists like Marshall Crenshaw, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello. The upfront production, for better or for worse, emphasizes Kates’ voice as he both nails it and occasionally whiffs it, sometimes on the same track.
The Sexy Accident launches its less-is-more approach from the top, though with mixed results. “Gardner, Gibbet, Misery,” a mostly two-chord wonder, shows how little is needed to fashion a devastating and memorable pop song. Other tracks (“My Girl,” “Hey You”) try to do too much with pop-punk arrangements that are in need of some maturation and better all-around performance. “Stall” in particular is an example of an excellent pop song marred by tepid drumming, an unnecessary and sloppy opening guitar riff and bass-only power-pop stops, which can be effective if everyone joins in but end up sounding like accidental pauses. A looser band could get away with the tempo issues that sprout up all over “Kinda Like Fireworks,” but The Sexy Accident’s concise songwriting can only benefit from some whip cracking in the studio. For instance, maybe someone with a fresh ear who can help the band rework its single-note guitar solo (“Lonely Days”).
With all the cranky posturing in the Kansas City scene, The Sexy Accident, in spite of its ridiculous name, could become our regional answer to the Fountains of Wayne. A charming, clever, nerd-core trio that doesn’t take itself too seriously. “Kinda Like Fireworks” isn’t quite an M-80, but those little paper popper things can be fun too, and a lot less scary.
- Steven Garcia, ink
Epic, 70-minute albums have their pleasures, but there's something to be said for keeping things short and to the point. There's a distinct pleasure in a quick, compact album where every song hits its mark, and when it's over you're ready to play it again. TOURISM, from the Kansas City trio The Sexy Accident, is one of those albums: 10 songs, 30 minutes of sleek, punchy pop-rock that is infectious and fun, yet still filled with real-world emotions, stories, and settings.
'Playability' is a vague concept I guess, but TOURISM is the epitome of it: an album you can play and play and play - listen to, sing to, live with. The appeal lies in part with their tight, rhythmic, melodic style of pop-rock, with guitars, bass, and drums blending seamlessly. And it also comes from the everyday, universal quality of the songs themselves. Jesse Kates sings in an non-rock-star, low-key style that I find endearing. It fits his real-life style of lyrics well, whether he's singing about the adventures of a video game player ("Undefeated Champion of the Arcade") or lambasting an unfaithful lover ("Ashley Christian").
The lyrics are detailed, seem carefully crafted, and reflect circumstances from life as we know it (in the "Arcade" song, for example, the video arcade is torn down to make way for a Rite Aid). And in every case the musical tone is designed perfectly for the song's content. The video game player in "Arcade" is sung about over more driving, aggressive (but still quite pop) music. The blissful lovers' scene set up in "Morning Pales" is accompanied with gently alluring guitars, for example. Similar guitars loudly explode and ring out during "Bottled in Glass", reflecting both the hurt and the wistfulness of the lost-love tale.
A feeling of loss, wrapped up with memory and wishes and regrets and hope, runs through the album's second half, culminating with the gorgeous final track, "The More Things Stay the Same," an attempted new beginning hopeful in tone if not content. It's one of the most unique songs on the album, catchy even as it's particularly low-key and gentle. It ends an outstanding album on a high note.
- Dave Heaton, erasing clouds
There's something to be said about nerdy power pop that can poke
fun of itself, and The Sexy Accident is a shining example. One
part Cheap Trick and one part They Might Be Giants, TSA out maneuvers
all expectations by weaving geeky intelligence and humor throughout
their quirky rock opus.
Perhaps their finest moment is Undefeated Champion of The Arcade,
where all their elements come together in a perfect unit. It's
got a groovy droning guitar line, with nasal-toned vocals boasting
about video gaming skills, along with a lament about the arcade
being torn down to build a Rite-Aid. What's not to love?
- Mish Mash
 Sleight of Hand comes with a small chart that diagrams the instrumentation and the "rules" used in recording the album. Kates uses one guitar per song (except for "Answerphone", which sounds like Kates reading a poem into his answering machine), feeds it through an effects pedal and a loop machine, and records the results live. On paper, these sorts of artistic rules often seem like a good idea; when an artist works within a set of artificial restrictions, he or she is often more focused on the purity of the process. However, these ideas don't always play out as well as the artists would hope -- we need look no further than cinema's Dogme 95 movement for proof. Fortunately, Sleight of Hand is much better than Von Trier's The Idiots.
Rickenbacker opens the disc with a sparsely layered sequence of heavily effected guitar lines. Kates's choice to begin his experiment with economical use of the looping machine is an interesting one; his guitar is so heavily affected that it almost sounds more like a keyboard, and the epic soundscape he creates is both meditative and spiritual. G&L is moody and rich with reverb. As on Rickenbacker, Kates is patient with his machinery, adding a new loop to his piece only when necessary, wisely letting his improvisational playing dissolve in the air instead of coming back at the listener over and over again. Stratocaster goes for a cleaner sound, and this time Kates layers his guitar generously. It's a beautiful song that any anonymous listener would enjoy, not only for its success within the "rules", but as a well crafted and interesting piece. What more could anyone hope for in this type of artistic outing?
- Philip Stone, Splendid
Accompanied by a flow chart, which was by all guesses intended to explain the process of recording his latest album Sleight of Hand, Jesse Kates debut is a bit more complex than a few sparse arrows and chintzy MS Paint diagrams. Ill do my best not to bust on the guy for flow charting his flow, so to speak, because the best part of this album has nothing to do with Kates' tendency to diligently plan a path ahead.
Kates recorded this album using certain pre-determined rules (one instrument per song, no overdubs, 50% composition/50% improv). At times, the rubric behind Sleight of Hand succeeds in slighting the rest of us. The more emotive, free-form side of Kates, as on G&L where he sounds softer and more deliciously elusive than a guitarist is allowed to be by most civilized, verse-chorus-bridge-chorus countries, reveals the beginnings of a guitarist who seems poised to put the "emote" back in "emo" if only he had a flatmate who played a mean bass and had a contact at DreamWorks. G&L, like Stratocaster, eschews structurality, allowing Kates' more amorphous tones to overlap and loop into a concerted whole.
At its most effective, Kates six-track instrumental album, recorded entirely at home, is an introduction to a raw and still blossoming guitarist whos got the pedal and effects head of a seasoned studio musician. Less frequently, Kates' work leans too heavily on repetitive compositions that do not utlize his strong ability to pick which drones cut to the bone. Still, ultimately, Kates takes us there. Now get this lad a band.
- Ryan McCarthy, Delusions of Adequacy
Being the guitar geek that I am (wow, a critic who's a frustrated musician; who would have imagined that?), I was immediately drawn in by the guitar signal chain diagram on the press sheet. It's just not something you see everyday. Kates uses only one guitar per song, running it through a series of effects pedals and loops to create some ethereal instrumentals. Even non-axe slingers can appreciate these cool, atmospheric tracks.
- Chris Lupton, Impact Press
...Kates picks, strums and occasionally wails his way through these pieces. He does a fine job of telling stories without words.
- Aiding & Abetting
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