Kero Kero Bonito’s music has evolved dramatically over the past decade, as the British indie band has moved from their early twee pop sound to a darker, more experimental sound. All the while, lead singer Sarah Bonito has retained an unwaveringly dulcet and clear vocal style that recalls the unfettered sweetness of the group’s early output.
On her debut EP, Icarus, Bonito—under the moniker Cryalot—offers up five bold, glitchy pop songs that exist definitively outside the Kero Kero Bonito universe. Steeped in metaphor, turmoil, and extroverted electronic production, the EP uses the titular mythological figure as a jumping-off point for a study of hubris.
A twee-meets-metal turn is a natural progression for Bonito, whose work with Kero Kero Bonito has grown more thematically and sonically complex since they released the bubblegum-pop “Flamingo” in 2014. Icarus shares a narrative sensibility with the group’s “The Princess and the Clock,” an allegorical fairy tale set to synths, but heightens the contrast between Bonito’s endearingly youthful vocal style and explosive electronic production.
On Icarus’s opening track, “Touch the Sun,” the maximalist hyperpop production frequently flips between glitches, distorted bass, and ambient noise, so when Bonito sings, “I don’t care if I fall,” her sweet tone highlights her vulnerability and sets up her story of self-destruction. She then alludes to her inevitable fall on “Hurt Me” (“Don’t try to hurt me/‘Cause the angels are on my side”) over a trap beat. The chorus is repetitive but peculiar, favoring tension and atmosphere over danceable indulgence.
“Hell Is Here,” whose aggressive industrial sound and gory lyrics eclipse even Kero Kero Bonito’s darkest tracks, serves as Icarus’s centerpiece, around which the EP’s mood turns from defiant to mournful. The two closing tracks, “Labyrinth” and “See You Again,” evoke M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming with their wistful meditations and sonic grandeur. Fundamentally, these songs hinge on the same axis of juxtaposition as “Hell Is Here”: When Bonito closes the album with a plaintive “goodbye,” it’s her inimitable gentleness against a searing, screaming backdrop that makes Icarus feel as tragic as the myth that inspired it.
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