W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Beliefs & Thieves- The Kilograms (Rad Girlfriends Records)

 I write this with a certain amount of sadness as it appears that Beliefs & Thieves will be the last full LP from The Kilograms.  They did release an EP, Strike A Match earlier in the month which also ought to be checked out. It was probably a longshot for this project to be anything other than a short term endeavor anyway, what with Joe Gittleman (Mighty Mighty Bosstones) work as an associate professor at the University of Southern Vermont, Sammy Kay, the New Joisey ex-pat living and working in Cincinnati, as well as the busy lives of Micahel McDermott, J Duckworth and Craig Gorsline it seemed inevitable that The KGs might not last.  But we can be thankful that we did get Beliefs & Thieves from them.  Produced by Pet Steinfompf of the Bouncing Souls, what you get from B&T is a masterful blend of indie punk steeped in SKA.  But B&T isn’t a SKA album in the traditional sense (and by traditional sense I mean the 3rd and 4th wave) of the genre.  Beliefs & Thieves blends genres as disparate as heartland rock (“Saddest Songs”), New Jersey punk (“Fireworks”), and London Calling era punk (“Battles”) all blended with an infectious albeit sometimes subtle (sometimes not) SKA up beat.  My favorite song of the album however, is the straight up SKA song “Lorelei” with it’s bubbling farfisa-like beat. But the bottom line is, Beliefs & Thieves is a rocking joint which will have you, if not jumping up and down, certainly swaying back and forth from start to finish.