Kill The Lights
Gig Seeker Pro

Kill The Lights

| INDIE

| INDIE
Band Rock Alternative

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"Buffalo Of Love Review"

Edmonton Journal-Buffalo Of Love Review


CD: BUFFALO OF LOVE

Artist: Kill The Lights

Label: MapleMusic Recordings

Rating: 4/5

Review: If their music is reflective of personal conduct, Kill The Lights seem like the type of band that would actually have some sort of iconic "buffalo of love" enshrined in a cramped basement suite. Wacky, zany and borderline insane, Kill The Lights' latest album, Buffalo Of Love, is like being caught in a hurricane of multi-coloured confetti while onlookers sedately smoke apple-flavoured hookahs and delve into philosophical conversation. 2 Sinister Gentlemen is the perfect opener, at once exploding into mad pop sensibilities and gritty, grinding rock delicacies, leaving Lady Sniper and Bombs to gaze down at mismatched shoelaces. It's hard to criticize anything about this Toronto-based quintet, but it's also difficult to acknowledge Buffalo Of Love as flawless gem, mainly because it might ruin the chances of them coming out with a wittier, more cacophonous album in the future.

Amanda Ash

- Edmonton Journal


"KTL album review"

These Canadians know how to get the party started. They came once to our party and danced the night away. Now they’ll be coming back to storm the stage (on June 1) with their highly emotional dance rock. Put on your best dancing shoes and be prepared to party, as this crew knows how to bring it. They are already becoming the talk of the town in their native Toronto city and soon will too here as well. This debut is one that fans of Arcade Fire, Cold War Kids, The Smiths, Bloc Party, and our very own Ra Ra Riot will love. It’s full of hit singles. Check out our personal favorite “Lady Sniper” first, and then continue venturing through the album.
- Crashin In-Brooklyn


"Artist of the Day"

Kill the Lights
October 1, 2007


Kill the Lights
Who? Montreal quintet Kill the Lights -- Alexander Hackett (guitar/vocals), Stephanie Hanna (vocals/keyboards), Joseph Yarmush (guitar/ keyboards), Johnston Dignard (bass), and Yann Geoffroy (drums) -- formed in Toronto in 2005 after Hackett and Geoffroy made a move from Montreal to the Ontario metropolis out of boredom. The eventual result of their efforts, the debut LP Buffalo of Love, is out now via Toronto's Maple Music imprint.

What's the Deal? Kill the Lights mix up danceable '80s infused post punk along the lines of fellow Joy Division followers Editors and Interpol, only these members of the new school add in Hanna's soulful female vocals for a kick of spice and flavor. Far more experimental than most of their peers, Kill the Lights excel at long shoegaze walks as well as short electro-pop dance numbers. The seven-plus minute epic "Palest Form of Sabotage" showcases the bands most beautiful form of cacophony, a building slow burner every bit as charming as it is tantalizing, while album opener "2 Sinister Gentlemen" gets hearts beating and toes tapping.

Fun Fact: Kill the Lights frontman Alexander Hackett's car was stolen right in front of his bandmates' eyes after a gig at Toronto's El Mocambo venue last year. On top of having cars stolen, KTL has also come very close to breaking up as a band by hitting a moose in northern Quebec. The car and the moose didn't survive, but thank goodness Kill the Lights did. NATALIE B. DAVID

- SPIN


"Pop Montreal review"

Hot Hot Heat, Black Mountain Close Pop Montreal
October 8, 2007

MONTREAL: Patti Smith, Sunset Rubdown, Kill the Lights, and more preach to the converted as the sixth installment of the fest winds down.

Well after 1:00 A.M., a late-night gig by local post-punkers Kill the Lights brought Pop Montreal's final survivors out to Petit Campus. Frontman Alexander Hackett and vocalist/keyboardist Stephanie Hanna sang their hearts out for the last men -- and women -- standing. Select members from opening band the Dudes and Hot Hot Heat nursed their beers as Kill the Lights killed it on "Dirty Love" and the wistful, Joy Division-infused "Skinny White Girls." While the earnest fivesome continues to hone their live showmanship, KTL are on to something solid -- the rapid-fire pounding of drummer Yann Geoffroy certainly proved that.

And so, on this rainy October night, the sixth edition of Pop Montreal took its final bow. Merci Montreal... et bonsoir! SIMONA RABINOVITCH / PHOTOS BY RICHMOND LAM

- SPIN


"A Shining Light In A Blighted Scene"

A Shining Light In A Blighted Scene


The Band: Kill The Lights

The Song: "Two Sinister Gentlemen"
The Album: Buffalo of Love


Ten Word Description: Epic, shoegazing dance-pop. Dark but bouncing, like indie kid breakdancing.


Notesplosions: When humankind rises full-force against the deliriously boring current trends in shoegazer, the ones that have seedily developed in response to the genre's sudden popularity, it is no secret that I will be first in line. I've bemoaned it several times here on the 'Sploder, and I admit to assuming a certain prejudice the moment I hear a voice that carries even a hint of that tortured Ian Curtis swagger. So imagine my surprise with Montreal's darkly poppy Kill The Lights, who build their obvious shoegazer influence into a much more complex and exciting amalgamation. Just when I thought I'd had enough of baritone melodrama. Leave it to the Canadians.


This song exists in some bizarre universe where "bass-heavy" doesn't mean inactive guitar. Where ska's call-and-response vocals we're banished to the realm of high-school noodling and were instead encouraged among New York's finest hipsters. This song is virulently confident, despite living in an amorphous pop nebula. I find something every time I listen to this song, all the while tapping my foot. Beauty and complexity in Arctics-esque simplicity. Not often I can say that, really.


Really, it's just fun. But it's a thinking man's fun. So think. And dance. Do it. You know you want to.

- Headexploder blog


"Kill The Lights/Buffalo Of Love Review/Inside Entertainment"

Toronto quintet Kill The Lights taps into the modern new wave on their label debut. The infectious album gives a nod to the shoegazer sound of The Cure on tracks like "Secular Beginnings, Hideous Mess" and "Arctic At Dawn," while "You Took The Knife" contains the stamina and frenzy of New Order's "A Perfect Kiss," the soundclash of keyboards, drums and guitars on the four and a half minute intro to "Palest Form Of Sabotage" is a kaleidoscope of passion that peaks like a crescendo towards the end of the album, just as singer/guiatrist Alex Hackett passionately screams "We keep stumbling through this mess." On Buffalo Of Love, Kill The Lights is burning brightly. -AS - Inside Entertainment


"Kill The Lights/Buffalo Of Love Review/The Tripwire"

Prepare to add yet another Canadian band to your list of favorites. Kill The Lights have completed their first full-length album, which is being released by Maple Music Recordings in the great white north. This five piece is comprised of frontman Alex Hackett, keboardist Steph Hanna, guitarist Joe Yarmush, drummmer Yann Geoffroy and bassist John Dignard. Together they make layered rock that contains depth while maintaining quite an accessible feel.

Buffalo Of Love explodes with the opening track "Two Sinister Gentlemen." Big guitar chords bookend the monster of a chorus, where Hackett's vocals bounce easily from one octave to another. This is followed by the album's lead single, "Skinny White Girls," sounding like a cross between The Strokes and The Stills. Keyboardist Steph Hanna's backing vocals help add some color, making for a damn great track.

At times I am reminded a bit of U2 when listening to Kill The Lights, such as on "Orestes." Hackett does have a bit of Bono in his voice at times. One of the best tracks on Buffalo Of Love is "Lady Sniper," during which Hanna takes over vocal duties on the chorus. The boy/girl call and response works very well between these two, while the music itself bears a sped up resemblance to Ryan Adams' "So Alive." It is much more polished, but the guitar melody does have a bit of similarity, in a good way.

A band with this much musical firepower should have a least one track to let them flex their muscles a bit, which they do during "Palest Form Of Sabatoge." This seven-minute epic contains huge crescendos of guitars and keys, taking over four minutes to even get to the words. I bet this one kills on stage! The album then slows the tempo down to help calm us done as it concludes with the shoegazey "Ceremony In The Basement." The shimmering guitars are a bit reminiscent of Editors, ending with some fantastic vocal harmonies between Hackett and Hanna.

Kill The Lights have all the right ingredients for a great debut LP. Intelligent songwriting, powerful melodies and that perfect balance between indie and mainstream rock. They have given us an album filled with sonic beauty and anthemic moments that has kept Buffalo Of Love in frequent rotation on my own iPod. Fans of expansive rock songs with definitely enjoy this one.
- The Tripwire-Chip Adams


"Kill the Lights: Ready for the Spotlight?"

Kill the Lights’ guitarist and front-man Alex Hackett is nothing if not forthright regarding he and his band-mates’ musical experience - or lack thereof. When asked if he had ever received any professional training (he has an incredible voice), he whimsically replies, “No, no. Basically, I have no idea what we’re doing. Just belting it out.”

It’s this cavalier approach that makes Kill the Lights so appealing. The indie ensemble are first and foremost honest-to-goodness aficionados of the earnest, anthemic, and hook-driven rock n’ roll made popular in the ’80s by U2, the Smiths and James. And the fact that they are also quite good at putting their own touches on such well-trod territory does help of course.

Debut album Buffalo of Love, if a little obvious and tired in places, is a well-rounded soundtrack to a good night out in the city. Chock full of every attention-grabbing ploy in the book – handclaps, “woo hoo hoo” chants, energetic build-ups, grooving breakdowns, and every other rock tactic ever thieved from gospel music - the album showcases a band that, while still in the process of finding it’s own true footing, is nonetheless pretty damn impressive as is.

“[It was our] first time recording, figuring out what stuff sounds like when you record it. It was pretty weird, pretty hit and miss. We missed quite a few times, but we think we got some good stuff,” Hackett says.

The five member band (half of whom reside in Toronto; the rest call Montreal home), are all long-time friends from Knowlton, Quebec. But apart from a joint love for Britpop, their creative path was not clearly mapped out.

“None of us had played in bands for a long time. It was a lot of just dealing with what came out and picking the best of it. Obviously, we wanted a pop element; we wanted it to be accessible. But at the same time we wanted it very modern sounding. We’re all big fans of Britpop, especially John [Dignard, bass] and I. We didn’t want it to sound too Canadiana; we wanted a more international sound.”

“Basically, I have no idea what we’re doing. Just belting it out.”


Were there any bands particularly influential?

“Lately, I’ve been listening to the new TV on the Radio record a lot. Nothing too underground. Bloc Party. We’re definitely huge Smiths fans. Ride, early Blur…The Cure is one of my favourite bands ever. They have a wicked range of stuff. They have some fucking awful songs, but I kind of dig that. [Some of] it can be so cheesy, but at the same time, when they hit the nail on the head, it’s fucking awesome, you know? That’s the kind of music we like to listen to. There’s a bit of mish-mash. [Second guitarist] Joe [Yarmush] is a big seventies rock guy, so that added a little something different.”

It’s this mish-mash factor that could pose a problem down the road. Like other artists who decline to categorize themselves in any one particular style or sound, they run the risk of not being included in any category at all. Indeed, according the band’s website bio, they admit being called “inconsistent” live because they like to try different things. Do they worry that by breaking off into so many different directions, they could be fragmenting the Kill the Lights sound as a whole?

“That’s a concern that’s been coming up more and more. You realize that from the marketing point of view, there are so many bands out there, people are only willing to give you one chance, and we’ve had that happen. We’ve played shows where one element [of our sound] happened to be more prominent and then we read a blog or write-up where [critics] have written, ‘This is a band who play this kind of music.’ And we’re shocked. We think, ‘Wow! That’s definitely not what we want to come across as.’ But maybe that’s what we came across as that night. So we’re starting to realize that it’s part of the game. Consistency, especially when you’re starting out, can be a virtue and that’s probably what people prefer. We’ve definitely become more conscious of that. Everything has become so fragmented for us lately, especially geographically, musically a little bit. But we’re definitely hoping to survive the initial stages.”

Their first video, the loping shoegazer “Artic, At Dawn,” does little to dispel these concerns; with its Coldplay-esque vocals and hypnotic tempo, it’s the least similar to any of the urgent, danceable tracks that make up the rest of the album.

With his customary honesty, Hackett reflects: “Basically, it was pretty much out of our hands. This girl we know works for a video company and she liked the song. She applied for a grant to make a video and that was that. It was just a question of, ‘do we agree or not agree?’ So, of course, we said ‘yeah.’ It was a pretty weird experience, but hey, we got a video out of it. There was nothing in our control, but we couldn’t say no. It was cool; I don’t want to sound like it was a bad experience or anything, but yeah, it was a weird choice for our first vide - Spill Magazine


"Kill The Lights/Buffalo Of Love Review/Exclaim!"

Featuring experimental sounds, heartfelt lyrics, intense transitions, it’s obvious that from beginning to end of this ten-song album Kill the Lights got comfortable in every corner of the indie rock box. The intertwining vocals are like a colourful parachute of harmonies draped over a circus of attractive transitions within each song. Using clean progressions on the bass to complement the bends on guitar and fast-paced drumming, the band use the basics as a starting point. But, as the album continues, Kill the Lights experiment with instruments and songwriting, ultimately using points of elevation as a way to showcase their ability to create a big sound while simultaneously paying attention to detail. Although the album is reminiscent of other indie rock bands creating danceable, ambient music, KtL does it in a successful way and are worth checking out. (MapleMusic) - Exclaim!


Discography

Buffalo Of Love 2007

Two Sinister Gentlemen has been receiving feature radio play at modern rock station across Canada.

Photos

Bio

Kill The Lights is four men and one woman making calculated noises to specific rhythms with amplified instruments. Alex told Yann, “I feel something gnawing, and the police are giving me a hard time here in Quebec.” Yann replied, “Let us repair to Toronto, there are buildings and things and different people there.” The 401 was a razor of boredom, but percussion and melody were secured in the new metropolis. Lower octaves were required. John, barely visible in profile, emerged from somewhere in the G of the GTA to comply. Joe and Steph added tiers to the construct, in the form of keys, strings and tambourines. People whispered, “Chimaera!”

Kill The Lights first piqued Torontonian and Montrealer curiosity in the year of our Lord, 2005. Kill The Lights have a combined age of over one hundred and twenty. Kill The Lights believe there is an order to the universe but can’t quite figure out what it is. This confusion expresses itself in abstract musical forms – generous helpings of moody melody, stabby guitar licks, feverish drums, literate and imagistic lyrics, yelps, croons, keyboard burbles, equal dollops of joy and angst. There is more earnestness than irony to Kill The Lights. There is an embrace of pop song conventions but also a desire to flee from them. There are flirtations with experimentalism, shoegaze monotonies, and many feedback squalls. Underlying it all, there is a sense that music should be an artistic venture that combines passion, musical chops, friendship, and self-challenge.

Kill The Lights has played lots of shows with lots of prominent Indie-rock acts but won’t try and impress you by dropping their names. Kill The Lights sometimes wishes to spell its name Killthelights! - thinking this would indicate forward motion and modernity - but can’t really reach a solid consensus either way. Kill The Lights has been called “inconsistent” live because they like to try different things from show to show. Kill The Lights has slain crowds at Pop Montreal, North by Northeast and CMJ in New York.

Kill The Lights can be found drinking at Blizzarts in Montreal on Monday nights, or at the Queen’s Head Pub in Toronto.

Kill The Lights keeps its manager in a state of perpetual anxiety. Kill The Lights likes late brunches on the Plateau Mont-Royal, autumn, Brit-Pop, first snowfalls, foulards worn unpretentiously, Talking Heads, spastic energy, Newfoundland, Mitch Hedberg, Greek mythology, scuffling with macho bouncers, and the perfect espresso. For the record, Kill The Lights is:

Yann Geoffroy: Drums
Stephanie Hanna: Vocals and Keyboards
Joseph Yarmush: Guitars and Keyboards
Alexander Hackett: Guitars and Vocals
Johnston Dignard: Bass

Kill The Lights is set to release their awesome first disc, “Buffalo of Love”, in February. It was recorded hurriedly in cramped spaces with an international cast of very funny characters.