Review: Kite Party – Come On Wondering

Kite Party are one of the few recent emo post-hardcore bands to surface from the underground shortly after the genre’s demise. Even though the divide between lovers and loathers of the music probably died with its popularity in the mid 2000s, Come On Wandering has enough stylistic integrity to make music snobs start bickering over Sunny Day Real Estate again. Most of the tracks on the record are chock full of subtle guitar arpeggios slid between sustained, airy guitar riffs, while the lead singer cloaks his crooning reverb vocals slightly beneath the rest of the band to deliver token emo-core lyrical subjects—mundane nostalgia, hyperbolic struggles and a general indifference to anything else. Whether this kind of music makes a full comeback or not, Kite Party at least have the talent and inebriating cohesiveness to make it fondly remembered. –Gregory Gerulat