by John Bush
Four years after his debut, an LP of clever, double-entendre trip-hop, Kid Loco plunged deeper into the world of knowing naïveté with Kill Your Darlings. If the explicit liners aren't enough eye-candy for all the nymphomaniacs out there, the French downtempo producer and pop fanatic kicks off with a track named &Cocaine Diana& and the languorous female vocal: &Once the devil came into my kitchen/and with a knife and a fork, he ate my chicken/Twice the Lord came into my bedroom/and drunk boozy booze to gimme real satisfaction& over a slinky bassline and a few orchestral tune-up blattings. Tim Keegan, an occasional guitarist with Robyn Hitchcock and the leader of Departure Lounge, also makes appearances on several songs, though his sly, faux-emotional delivery on &Three Feet High Reefer& and &A Little Bit of Soul& tends to grate. The female vocalist, Louise Quinn, is less annoying, but also plays the coquette far too much. At times, Kill Your Darlings is a dead ringer for the anthemic meanderings of Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval and the Jesus & Mary Chain on the latter's Stoned and Dethroned album. Dragged down to the level of material like &Here Come the Munchies& (surely one of the most inane lyrics of the year), Kid Loco can't possibly hope to rescue these songs, no matter how good his productions.