Come Here When You Sleepwalk by Clue To Kalo (Review)

This is one of those CDs where just looking at the album cover will tell you everything about what you will be hearing. Like a bikeride on a summer day, the music that Clue To Kalo (one Mark Mitchell) makes is relaxed, beautiful, and occasionally blurred.

After the intro opener (and wonderfully titled) “The First Song of the Rest of Your Life,” the beeping “Empty Save the Oxygen” chugs along like the chain of a bicycle, with Mark Mitchell’s breathy vocals coming in for a few moments at the beginning. Next comes “This Is Over By Inches,” one of the biggest highlights on an album full of highlights, which opens with a fuzzy vocal sample that remains throughout the whole song, accompanied by a beat and warm electronics.

“This Dies Over Distance” has the pacifying and sleepy quality of a lazy summer afternoon, while the 11-minute “Still We Felt Bulletproof” goes through a whole variety of styles and emotions, from tired to playful and jumpy.

The album itself never really gets up and rocks, other than the aggressive “I Think We Can Kinetic,” and that’s hardly a bad thing. What the music lacks in explosiveness it makes up for in sheer quality. There’s not one mediocre song on the CD, and it’s amazingly consistent and organic. When you get to the end of the absolutely lovely closing track (“Do You Know That Love Can End?”), you’ll feel as if you’ve just returned from a long, pleasant bike ride, like the one on the cover. Surely, it’s a ride you’ll want to take again.

Written by Richie DeMaria.