This Is The Kit – “Silver John”

This Is The Kit – “Silver John”

This Is The Kit’s “Silver John” envelops you like fog rolling in off the water, heavy with atmosphere and full of uncertainty. Kate Stables writes innocent, wide-eyed songs that set you at ease, before suddenly dropping a line like “you apocalypse on us, yes,” like a kick to the back of your knees. A simple shift of syntax turns the end of the world into a verb itself, enacted and sweeping over the sides of the deck, a storm surge with no warning. Part pirate tall-tale, part out at sea, the song’s refrain, “we’re not ready yet,” takes on weight when you realize it’s a meditation on the end of the world. Like the title track off her forthcoming third album, Bashed Out, Stables is confronting enormous, baffling questions within the tranquil bounds of her own breed of folk rock. Given these restraints, the concentration on existence comes down to a single guitar chord, a swath of organ, or a wordless harmony. Apocalypse, mind waiting till the song’s over? Listen.

Bashed Out will be out April 6 via Brassland.

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