Album review: KIK TRACEE – No Rules and Field Trip (2 CDs)

Bad Reputation [release date 14.05.21]

Kik Tracee were one of the fallen in 1992′s Grunge assault on the Sunset Strip/Glam/Bandana/Sleaze (delete as appropriate) Rock’n'roll supremacy.
A young band, clearly “inspired” by Guns’n'Roses, you can hear they had something to offer, even if the No Rules album was an incomplete version of what they could become. They were proteges of Slaughter’s bassist/songwriter/producer, Dana Strum, who aimed to free them from their MTV fixation.

Enterprising French label, Bad Reputation have now pumped up and reissued the original album as an expanded package. 3 bonus tracks (2 of which were previously unreleased) added to the original album takes CD 1 to 17 tracks. And a second, bonus disc, ‘Field Trip’, originally released as an 6 track EP, now has its very own self explanatory (and previously unreleased) bonus track, ‘Kik&Talk’.

And on this very much extended reissue you can hear – at times – what Strum wanted us to hear.

Good songwriting take time to develop. Which is why the song that makes the initial impression on No Rules, ‘Mrs Robinson’, is a cover. Of a Paul Simon song. This version, from its rapidfire rimshots to Stephen Shareaux’s knowing, drawling vocals… “we’d like to know a little bit about you for our files” … intrusive government organisations were alive and well in the sixties … is a most enjoyable, almost camp, tour de force.

Clever sequencing too. It’s immediately followed by ‘It’s So Strange’ (a theatrical Cheap Trick) and the pointed social commentary of ‘Trash City’. These two show that the band can write a more than decent song.

As for the rest of the album, Strum does his best. A great deal of excitement is generated by his brassy and bombastic arrangements. Yes, KT stray into other bands’ backyards, but when they’re generating the mechanical rock funk of ‘Soul Shaker’ or ‘Big Western Sky’s cheesy chart aimed pop, we feel sure that G’n'R and Poison won’t get territorial.

The Field Trip EP is the sound of a more confident, cohesive band. The writing and performance is more focused … you can hear them searching for their own authenticity. Opener, ‘Outta My Bed’ is a rollicking, good time Glam Rock song. It’s a genre piece yes, but they’ve tattooed their own identity on it. The title track is a lazily meandering, semi acoustic piece of rock romanticism. Stylish too.
The clattering, tribal funk of ‘In Trance’ might remind you of Jason Bieler’s trips into psychedelia. No better praise.

Sadly, Kik Tracee went the way of many. A second album was recorded, but shelved, and the band broke up.
This package is is a fitting testimonial. Search it out.***1/2

review by Brian McGowan

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