Kiwi Jr are, by their own admission, a band of absurdists. That said, they clearly have a single-minded approach to making music; how else would you get signed to a label like Sub Pop? The Canadian four-piece are unmistakably prolific – this is their third album in as many years – yet there’s an offhand quality to their sound. The press release for Chopper describes it as “The Monkees starring in Blade Runner” (what’s not to love?), but it’s not quite as eccentric as that may sound.
As contradictory as they might be, there is a lot to like about these 10 songs, not least the wacky warble of Unspeakable Things, which retains a Fountains of Wayne-style pop sensibility, or the slacker-pop swing of Parasite II, with its droll nod to Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 film. As the tracklist unfurls, we venture further into synthpop balladry (The Extra Sees the Film sounds like The Killers if they had some genuine indie street cred), and the kind of idle alt-rock peddled by bands like Pavement (Kennedy Curse, Clerical Sleep).
The sinister intonations of Contract Killers, with its eccentric stream-of-consciousness lyric sheet (“Superman probably made more money than me” just one example) and a gleefully slouchy riff, hold attention a little more soundly. There are melodic and lyrical gems littered throughout this album, but they’re often difficult to unearth from beneath the pleasantly scrappy plod of these songs.
