Let's Duke It Out at Kilkenny Katz' [CD]

Let's Duke It Out at Kilkenny Katz'. The fight for communication and clarity. The interweaving of lust and love. The complications of age and wisdom. And the blurring of it all in the shadows of the city at night.Chris Leo, New York City's mythical troubadour, returns in his second Vague Angels full-length (the first was released as part of his novel White Pigeons), evoking a world both more solitary and singular than in past outings. Any suggestions of a band are gone. The songs of Kilkenny Katz' have been stripped down to Chris, his lyrical guitar and the lush productions that serve as the landscapes for his musical wanderings.To a greater extent than on his past releases, the songs of Kilkenny Katz' allow the desire for clarity of both sonic and oral expression to eclipse the need to preserve the formalism of the pop song. Compositions become lyrical journeys and first-person explorations that drift from grounded stories into abstract dream-states. Characters materialize from within the narrative, not only in lyrical reference, but also in voice. Between them, instrumental moments serve as traveling themes bridging destinations - mountainous terrain and fields of windmills passing in the distance. And amidst it all moves our narrator, the fictional Leo, his Picaresque wanderings depicted through the lens of song, more focused than ever on elusive destinations.In the end, the journey brings our narrator back to New York, the image of a city bird and the ever-present pull between love and depravity, solitude and companionship, band and solo artist. Let's Duke It Out at Kilkenny Katz' embraces the duality, joining the nuances of past projects (The Lapse, The Van Pelt) with a heightened literary ambition and a narrative album approach. Chris Leo, with the help of some friends, once again puts forth a musical statement that is unmistakenly his own. A personal journey into the hear