Lithuanian trio Timid Kooky continue to flex their musical muscles and exercise their nation’s relatively new-found cultural freedom with another mash-up of punk, alt-rock, metal and other significant noises.
From opener Westley Snypes, the clash/blend of styles and vocals recall Armenian-American alt-metal titans System Of A Down. The formula is established early on with rapid riffs a la Black Flag or Dead Kennedys and drummer Martynas “Dziugas” Stanevicius super busy and super skilled on the skins and fills, all to good effect.
Baby Be My Spiderman must be one of the best titles around and if the song itself is not quite a “Marvel” (… snigger) it does boast more driving riffs and a nice geetar solo. Win Big, Lose It is more of the same – too much the same? It certainly suggests these kooky guys are not too timid when it comes to repeating themselves. Apparently it’s a “concept record”, hence recurring musical themes? But more variety would be welcome at this stage, with the vocals tending towards something of an atonal drone – perhaps a deliberately discordant tactic.
Things are back on a better track with Run Uphill and a riff that sounds like Devo trying to play Joe Satriani’s Super Funky Badass (yes, that’s meant as a compliment). The frenetic pace and energy levels never flag and there’s another solo (TK’s guitarist is Dovydas Subicius). Track five, Pats Sau, with more mad drums, “Ooo, ooo” backing vocals and lots of “yeah, yeahs”, keeps the best ’til last and is certainly the most “different” and most obviously accessible song of the bunch.
All in all, a worthy outing from the guys previously hailed “Best Young Band In Lithuania” and “Best New Baltic Band”, but have they taken a step back in an attempt to go forward? There’s a definite sameyness to a lot of this new material, especially as compared to 2018 debut album Tanzen – nothing to match, for instance, the near seven-minute instrumental Divina, which comes on like The Beach Boys before running a riff-tastic, psychedelic/punk/prog gamut via its Edge-y guitar display. Tanzen also boasts more verve, variety and vitality in the vocal delivery, more sonic pleasures and much more light and shade, generally (Gold Stone is another Tanzen highlight well worth checking out).
But we’re not here to talk so much about Tanzen, we’re here for Baby Be My Spiderman, an anti-ego tale “centred around an over-confident, macho, hyper-masculine character” facing a journey of “inner self-realisation” – you know, a “concept record”. There’s no doubt this talented trio – bassist Tomas Simniskis makes it three – have a punk ethic/ideology that’s plugged back into the 1970s but enhanced by a “today” bag of tricks. They’re full of fun (check out their visuals and videos), full of ideas and potential, and who could knock that?
Baby Be My Spiderman, by Timid Kooky, is out now, from The state51 Conspiracy