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Kenelis live at the West End Centre, 23.01.08

 

Kenelis continued their unstoppable rise with the official launch of their debut album at Aldershot’s West End Centre on Friday night.

The Farnborough group, who released ‘Remember How It Felt’ through their own label on Monday, headlined the gig to celebrate five years of hard work and a record which can sit proudly alongside any British debut you will hear this year.

The night kicked off with young Guildford band District 6, whose skill and composure in the limelight belied their tender years.

Camberley’s Spectrum 7 continued the build up, taking to the stage in matching check shirts with fashionably high guitars and an expensive-sounding drum machine.

They have energy and enthusiasm to spare, but lend an ear to their Myspace because the studio environment evidently does more justice to their tunes.

Kenelis exploded onto the stage and immediately showed why they have been attracting so much attention lately.

Singer Mel Sanson is a rock powerhouse, thrashing her head from side to side and belting out angst-ridden songs like it’s her last night on stage.

Guitarist Andy Seabrook-Harris is a perfect foil for Sanson’s manic persona, moving effortlessly between crunching riffs and more subtle sounds.

Joking about a major-label conspiracy to cover up the band’s Christmas number one – a nod to the group’s ironic Facebook campaign to secure the festive top spot – Sanson was in jovial form and her energy radiated around the venue.

Highlights included acoustic-led number ‘Drained’ and the dizzying thrash metal of ‘Nobody Sees Me But You’.

For those in the crowd lucky enough to have already heard and absorbed the album, this gig was confirmation of the band’s power and talent.

For those yet to hear it, they will surely be logging on to iTunes or visiting their local music outlet to immerse themselves in the crazy world of this promising band.

To see my video from Friday’s gig, click here.

Album review: Kenelis – Remember How It Felt

                                                                  

ROCK has become something of a dirty word in British popular music over the past few years.

The fall in popularity of mid-90s bands such as Feeder and Placebo has left rock fans in the UK with a clear choice – slap on some eye makeup and mosh to the likes of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, or follow the herd and bop along to Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight and co.

Gone are the days when pure, heavy rock was cool. The days between punk and britpop, the days of Black Sabbath, Whitesnake and all those guys who knew that if you haven’t got a headache by the end of a gig, you’re just not rocking hard enough.

So hats off to Farnborough’s Kenelis, who are single-handedly bringing back the kind of blisteringly ear-quaking music that has been out in the cold for so long.

The band’s debut album, ‘Remember How It Felt’, released on their own independent label, is a startling piece of work from a group who have built up a solid reputation locally over the past four years, and are now ready to expand their horizons beyond the fringes of the M25.

Before they even play a note, the band have hit upon a familiarly winning line-up – four almost invisible guys behind a feisty, beautiful lead singer who just happens to be a girl. But there is so much more to Mel Sanson than her looks.

She delivers the group’s powerful songs in a rasping voice that switches effortlessly between husky and seductive to an all-out scream that makes you fear for the future of her precious vocal chords.

But of course no rock chick is complete without her band, and Andy Seabrook-Harris, James Chilton, Andy Henry and Sam Franklin have created a complex, layered sound that combines all kinds of influences and yet is unmistakably Kenelis.

Seabrook-Harris’ lead guitar hooks are a particular standout. After a few spins, you’ll swear you’ve heard this record a thousand times, such is its immediacy and high-quality production on show throughout.

What sets this record apart from the work of many other local bands is its texture and subtleties.  On ‘Give Her The Gun’, for example, there are more ideas than your average band manages in an entire album.

A dream-like piano hook gives way to Sanson’s breathy vocals before the band kicks in to beef the song up with a funky breakbeat, climaxing with the eerily catchy distortion-filled singalong ‘Now she’s gonna bury you.’

Sanson’s lyrics throughout the album are extremely evokative, painting pictures of broken relationships with simple lines such as ‘I want to be why you smile’ (‘Drained’) and creating scenes of conflict and angst: ‘I’m not here to make you sad/ Are you sure?’ (Nobody Sees Me But You).

Kenelis are a breath of fresh air for the future of rock music, and a band to keep a close eye on as 2009 continues.

Kenelis’ album launch takes place at the West End Centre on Queens Road, Aldershot on Friday January 23. Tickets £6 from the Box Office: 01252 330040.

Remember How It Felt is released on January 26 on itunes and all major download sites.