KGFreeze
VOLUNTEER
self-released      

Click to hear: “Power_+_Status”

KGFreeze is former Grand Hotel frontman Kyle Gervais’ latest project. For VOLUNTEER, the second KG release, Gervais enlisted a slew of talented locals, including multi-instrumentalist Sean Morin, guitarist T.J. Metcalfe, and guests like singer Sara Hallie Richardson and Spencer Albee, who plays organ on one track.

Maybe it’s a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, but this album is some really bad broth. Overwrought, self-indulgent, repetitious and predictable, it skips from one rotten idea to another.

Take the opening title track, on which Gervais, his voice distorted behind a dreary electronic haze, complains about the music biz — “I can’t quit this shit / ’cause I’m a volunteer” (note: I actually like that line) — for over three minutes until the song picks up some speed and goes … nowhere. An opportunity for a killer transition into the cocksure rock of “Power + Status” is totally blown as “VOLUNTEER” abruptly dims and dies. I haven’t heard a transition flubbed this badly since that engineer accidentally erased the beginning of Zeppelin’s “Celebration Day.”

The next track, “Silver Briefcase,” has a decent rock strut, and if Gervais had stuck to this stuff he’d be better off. But no, he’s gotta try to be Rustic Overtones on “Top Secret,” a duet of sorts with Richardson, whose presence can save almost any song, and keeps this one just on the right side of listenable. The white-boy R&B goof “Better Falsetto” is unfunky and more cheesy than I think he intended; the rap tacked on toward the end just sounds tacky.

“You’ve loved me forever / but I’ve loved you since the beginning of time,” Gervais sings on “Talk About Love.” “I’ve been told that it’s the same thing / but that just can’t be right.” Six minutes later, I felt like I’d been listening to this tiresome track since the beginning of time. The whole second half of the album is unsalvageable schlock, burdened by programmed beats and crappy synth. “Good Times Roll,” a collaboration with anti-folkie-gone-electro Jakob Battick, merits mention for being possibly the worst song I’ve heard in years (Metal Feathers’ recent tantrum tracks excepted).

Avoid this album if you can.

— Chris Busby