Kyoto Protocol – ‘Catch These Men’ album review

The record proves the band's inherent restlessness, men made of mania, menace and some melancholy, as though they’re yelling at the whole world at once

Tuesday 3 March 2015

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This has been a long time coming. To be fair, since their formation in 2009, Kyoto Protocol has been averaging on a release every two years: ‘An Album’ EP in 2011, 2013’s ‘Pahlawan’, their first Malay EP, and now, finally, the long-awaited full-length album, ‘Catch These Men’. The first few years of Kyoto Protocol saw them in their 20s, improving the industrial, modern rock sound, drawing from a well to emerge with fist-pumping, rapid fire songs; today, most of them are hitting their 30s and they’re a living, breathing rock’n’roll band.

Let’s get it out of the way: ‘Catch These Men’ is an album of growers – the first few tracks bleed into each other, startling and speedy – but even in an album of growers, some tracks stand out: ‘Monster’s Ball’, ‘KL I Love You’ and ‘Forever’, to pick a few.

To play a Kyoto Protocol record is to commit, with no constraints, to a certain level of collective energy – and this is something they do well, with hard-pleading bridges, monster guitar crunch and pummeling crescendos. We begin, then, with ‘Infernal’, which sounds exactly like one would expect it to with a title like that: aggravating and bleeding, with strained singing and a message about the ‘heat of infernal times’, ‘the cloud of death’. Halfway through the album, you’ll begin to pick out two or three themes ribboning through: the environment (fitting, of course, considering their moniker), life in the city and personal metaphors for professional, 9-to-5 woes. ‘Still Alive’ opens with ‘all the doors are closed / got to kick them down’; ‘Dispensable’ deliberates the ‘lopsided equation’ where ‘the rich get rich, the poor deplored’, and in ‘An Honest Day’s’, Fuad admits to ‘pimping myself out: a corporate whore’.

This is not a clean, finished album; at the advice of Faiz Fadzil, the band recorded ‘Catch These Men’ live. It’s gritty, and it captures a spark and spontaneity – but on the flip side it’s a little fuzzy here and there, almost anxious. It ends with ‘Forever’, a three-minute track that allows the band to slow it down, to indulge in the contemplative and the dreamy. Mostly though, ‘Catch These Men’ reels and reels – nine solid songs, but the album in itself is not singular. These are, of course, minor complaints; the record proves Kyoto Protocol’s inherent restlessness, men made of mania, menace and some melancholy, as though they’re yelling at the whole world at once. Maybe next time, the words won’t be as blurry.

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

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