Knight School / Revenger

Make A Mess

KNIGHT SCHOOL is a fresh-faced duo (sometime trio) from New York City transmitting mesmeric frequencies like star students of a cassette-pop underworld. Revenger is their second full-length record following 2009’s self-released The Poor and Needy Need to Party, and their first for a minor label: San Francisco’s Make a Mess Records. Knight School populates gorgeous, entrancing melodies with opaque lyrics that are often bleak, sometimes humorous and often bleakly humorous (sometimes). Their concise songs have a strange air akin to a celebratory sadness, like bounding out of the house in the middle of summer to find yourself in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm. KEVIN ALVIR and CHRIS BALLA wrote and recorded Revenger themselves, conjuring epic bedroom hypnosis from acoustic guitars, electric jangle and chime, primitive drum machines, tumbling drum kits and dreamy harmonies (and harmonicas). The album recalls early Guided By Voices, ’60s folk-pop wonderment, The Go-Betweens and post-punk-era indie, but casts off into foreign waters on the strength of its own charmingly personal vision.

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