#kid mud

Kid Mud is a band from California, consisting of frontman Sean Duncan, Steve Brooks, Mike Reavill, Nick Ruiz, and Mike Watkins. They’ve taken on a new style for this album, bringing in a few new styles to add to the mix. This record, ‘The Ghost On Lee St.’ is Kid Mud’s fourth (total) release. On this album, they blend a lot of styles from alternative to synth.

‘The Ghost On Lee St.’ Overview

All in all, this record leads itself from a strong finish to a strong end, with a few ups and down in between. It starts out very bright, with a lot of synth going on and a lot of vocals. There’s just a lot happening, and it mixes really well. It gets really spacy and slow after this, which definitely is a big change, but it winds out being pretty good. The track “Justification” is definitely a bit darker and more apparently dark than the rest of the album. It picks up about halfway through the 4th track and keeps it going through the 5th before heading into the end. The actual end of the album definitely feels like an ending track, which isn’t something that I can say very often. I actually like it though, it’s nice having an ending that actually feels like an ending for once. And for the sake of the joke, when the synth comes in towards the end, it definitely feels fitting to say its the “revenge of the synth”.

Synth-Necessity

As a whole, if you didn’t have the synth effects added to this record, then you probably wouldn’t think anything of it; it would just come off as an indie record. Having it, though, does nothing but add, which definitely isn’t something that a lot of bands can really say. For the upbeat songs, it adds a bit more brightness, and with the slow songs, it adds to the melancholy overtones that each song puts off. I’m not personally someone that is a huge fan of synth unless its used rather sparingly, or if its actual EDM. I do like it on this record though, which can be a bit of a statement for me.

Length

This album is relatively short, sliding in at a little under half an hour. Realistically, that’s not really a bad thing; it’s not a huge thing for bands to have to have gigantic, symphony-status records. Sometimes, you just don’t really need that. There’s only six songs on the record, which breaks everything up nicely into little chunks. The songs do flow into each other, but you can obviously just listen to any songs by themselves and it’ll be fine.

Conclusion

As a whole, this album is really up and down, and it makes for a pretty solid listen. It doesn’t linger around too long, but it stays long enough for you to get to hear all of the different styles everyone is bringing to the table. All of the different tones and synths add a fun mix to the sometimes stale ‘indie’ genre.

Favorite Track- “Security Deposit”

Rating- 8 ½ Runaway synth tracks

Buy ‘The Ghosts on Lee St.’- https://kidmud.bandcamp.com/