Civilisation

Chronique

Since their early days, Kero Kero Bonito have excelled at giving their musical directions an extra dose of meaning. When their hyper-pop contemporaries were trying to sound as artificial as possible, KKB humanized the style with Bonito Generation's songs about parents and graduation, and on Time 'n' Place, they used '90s alt-rock to embody the clash between nostalgia and reality that happens while growing up. With Civilisation -- which collects 2019's Civilisation I and 2021's Civilisation II EPs -- Kero Kero Bonito magnify their need to understand their place in the world to include humankind as a whole. As Sarah Midori Perry, Gus Lobban, and Jamie Bulled explore the world's urgent but deep-seated issues (war, climate change, tyranny), they encompass the past, present, and future of humanity and their music. The trio returns to its electro-pop roots, but befitting Civilisation's subject matter, KKB adopts a much more complex style to relay the EPs' parallel history of deception, apathy, and destruction. This is particularly true of Civilisation I's songs: "Battle Lines" throws listeners into a disorienting fray of synths, polyrhythms, and Perry's vocals that owes as much to Ryuichi Sakamoto as it does to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, while "The River" pulses along on a house-inspired beat as humanity is swept away in a cleansing flood. Arriving just a few months before 2020 rocked the world, Civilisation I seemed prescient, but Civilisation II put Kero Kero Bonito in the unique position of being able to respond to the issues they were addressing in more or less real time. Instead of getting even darker, the songs from Civilisation II respond to the first EP's cautionary tales with fables and stories that incorporate the brighter side of KKB's music and reflect how we cope with crises. Each song is equally ominous and optimistic, whether it's the brilliantly sprightly yet eerie 8-bit fairytale "The Princess and the Clock," the bittersweet realities of COVID-19 lockdown life on "21/4/20," or the hypnotic finale "Well Rested," which closes with Perry intoning cryptically, "Doomsday hasn't happened yet -- you cannot stop civilization." To say that the group packs a lot into Civilisation's six songs is an understatement, but the results are far from overwrought. Small yet expertly crafted, this is Kero Kero Bonito at their inventive, heartfelt best.

© Heather Phares /TiVo