Sky Larkin - Kaleide

Sky Larkin are a 3-piece from Leeds. I first encountered them supporting Frightened Rabbit, and after the gig finished I found myself chatting to their drummer about Deftones (there's an important message here-wearing metal t-shirts to indie gigs gets you in with the drummer). He was so nice and they were sufficiently good that I bought a t-shirt and this LP from him for £20, which is probably one of the best purchases I've made in ages. It's an absolutely fantastic album, probably one of my top albums of the year. I can't describe it any better than it is an "indie" album, there's no convenient genre for me to pigeonhole them into. Katie Harkin's (SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS they have a lady vocalist) vocals make the band sound so very different to any other things I hear nowadays, and the rest of the band behind her sound really tight. There's a couple of missteps on the album (i.e. Anjelica Huston) but also a few utterly outstanding songs, like the rampaging Spooktacular and the heartfelt ATM (with its wonderful central lyric "There are questions written through bone as if words in sticks of rock/Like whether a selfish heart is a truthful muscle or not"). On the whole, it's a really really good album and shows a band with a lot of potential. You should really go and listen to it. I'm going to have to buy their first album soon. For now though, some pictures.

I really like this cover art. It's angular and colourful and pretty. It looks really good this big as well.

The vinyl is a gatefold affair. It came with a download code, because the people at Wichita are super-awesome. As you can see, the inside of it is as colourful as the cover. It gives me lots to look at!

This is the detailing on the dust sleeve, which is a nice thick card material. The shapes on it, if you can't tell, are 3D rectangle outlines. It was pretty hard to get a picture that showed them, but they actually look really good.

This is the left side of the inside of the gatefold. It's been printed with all of these squares, each of which represent one of the pages in the booklet that I presume came with the CD (a digital copy of this booklet came with the download as well, more badassery from Wichita). It's not quite as cool as PABH's 12" booklet, but it looks pretty good and it's a clever way of utilising the gatefold layout.

Just an apology, this picture didn't come out too well. The back cover of the vinyl looks really washed out here, the colours are a lot more like the front. As you can see, the vinyl is again just a plain black. However, it's also 180 gram vinyl (i.e. thicker and heavier than usual), which gives it a nice weighty feel. Top notch.