IN THE KINGDOM OF KITSCH YOU WILL BE A MONSTER

Shining started out as an avant-garde jazz band and over the years transformed into the most powerful semi-orchestral instrumental progressive rock band in the business. This album, In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will be a Monster (great title, huh!), finds the band in a transitional phase playing a slightly more dissonant version of their present prog-rock, plus with a lot of their old avant-jazz tendencies still very present. To say that Shining's music is unique is an understatement, but if I drop enough names you might get a picture of what they sound like. Let's start off with Henry Cow, King Crimson, John Zorn, Mr Bungle, Ligeti, Penderecki, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra's quirky world-lounge exotica, a bit of thrash metal and traditional music from Scandanavia, Africa and a few places in between.

This album is pretty much the opposite of easy-listening with it's intense metallic jazz fusion that is often laced with quiet creepy moments when you feel the next assault is lurking just around the corner. Although a lot of the avant- garde sections on this album are very good, Shining sometimes lapses into that sort of self-deprecating silliness that mars some of Fred Frith's work. I think the thing that puts Shining ahead of the pack is their ability to write really strong non-cliché dramatic melodies. Although there are some melodies like that present on this album, the follow-up album, Grindstone, will have them in much greater abundance.

This one is for fans of avant-garde rock only, but stick around because on their next album Shining begins to play in a style that should appeal to fans of intense modern heavy instrumental progressive rock.