Those who were in The Palomino Smokehouse for Sled Island on June 23 could not keep their eyes off Kamikaze Nurse — a rock band from Vancouver, B.C. made up of members KC Wei, Ethan Reyes, Sonya Eui and John Brennan — who were performing their newly-released second album Stimuloso.
The band is known to transcend beyond genres to layer distorted sound effects and authoritative vocals on a melodic foundation to create a narrative world that each member of the band were immersed in during their performance — despite any technical issues they were facing.
They created a noisy but well-constructed world so that you could feel the emotion behind every song, even though you could not clearly hear the lyrics during the live performance like you would in studio versions of the same songs. This emotive aspect of their performance was the saving grace for audience members like me who are not familiar with the band or the genre of rock music as a whole.
The obvious emotional connection that they shared with their music showed a level of vulnerability that was easy to connect to.
A particular moment that stood out to me was when the already loud music was compounded with yelling. While initially shocking, the yelling served a purpose like every other sound or vocal effect used during the performance. It did not feel just thrown in for the sake of yelling. Instead, it gave the song a distinct and important heavier sound of anger when compared to the rest of the performance.
This is not to say that the whole performance was just loud. Kamikaze Nurse had created noise even in quieter moments with their use of unconventional sound or vocal effects. This gave the performance a range of alternative rock that you did not get bored of at any point.
Be sure to check out their new album on Spotify, Apple Music, or Youtube Music.
