Kill Kenneth – S/T

Kill Kenneth is a punk-band from Gothenburg, Sweden and this self titled album is their debut, at least as far as I know. I haven’t played Elden Ring myself, but from a search on the interwebs it seems that the band name could be a reference to a character/quest in that game. If so, that’s a plus from the start in my book.

Kill Kenneth plays garage-punk, sung with a (sometimes) pretty heavy British accent that kind of comes and goes between songs. It’s pretty clear early on that this is a band that doesn’t take things all too seriously, so I tried to let go of the notion of finding something deeper here and just tried to enjoy the ride. It went so so.

I don’t know if it’s the genre or if it’s the execution but it seldom speaks to me. Lyrically it’s towards the rock side of things, ranging between alcohol, cigarettes and weed, dicks and assholes, to fuck the Danes and stolen bikes. Not really saying anything too edgy or political though. The one time I smile a bit to myself is the first time I heard Fat Fuck, that ends up on the right side of kind of catchy and a bit fun, at least on the first couple of plays. The end with a fast-food worker saying “Sorry sir, the ice-cream machine is broken” the singer screaming fuuuuuuuuck and the worker saying “Please calm down sir”, got me the first playthrough. But that’s about as fun as it gets here.

The band is trying some things to mix things up, such as using a monologue from the show Riket as an intro to Burn the Bridge, and there is a Bossanova-track telling a little story about Kenneth. But please, no more bossa-tracks (I’m looking both at Staf and Kill Kenneth here), and please, I don’t care that much about stolen bikes, however relatable of a subject that might be (both bands are guilty here as well).

There’s a strong DIY-feeling on the album and Kill Kenneth clearly doesn’t give a fuck what I or any other person thinks about their stuff. But I think this is one of those times where the band definitely has more fun playing than I’m having listening. 9 songs in about 13 minutes, I guess it’s not much of an effort to give it a spin, just to see what you think yourselves.