I’ve been enjoying myself all week with Vintage Smell, the full-length debut album by Phoenix-based indie rock quartet KITIMOTO, but I still can’t quite grasp it. As if you’ve seen a movie that won’t let go, you’re convinced it’s very good and something special, but you’re aware that you did’t understand all the metaphors and references.
Jonathan Marion Douglas (guitars, vocals, keys), Zane Gillum (bass), Cavan Noone (drums, percussion) and Jason Woodbury (guitars, vocals) have known each other for over 15 years, and reportedly the 10 tracks here came slowly but surely into being, took long shaping and refining. It was worth the time and effort. All the songs – there are no weak moments – are bewitching and addictive, color outside the lines of genres and expectations, with intense guitar duels, poetic lyrics and convincing vocals. This is an ultimate example of a record that has to grow, that continues to fascinate, one with a past but for sure also with a future.
Vintage Smell out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Fort Lowell Records.
