Free Kitten
Inherit

It was back in 1991, when two of the most virtuosic minds in indie-rock carved out a small space for themselves, creating this sulfurous noise project parallelly, known by the name Free Kitten.

And now Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and Julie Cafritz (Pussy Galore), after more than ten years since their last "Sentimental Education," have returned with this "Inherit."

The premises were good: Julie's Pussy Galore concluded, and in full "sonic serenity" for Kim, the alluring green cover immediately conveys a sense of change and creativity. Having abandoned the hard-noise of their beginnings and the more classic sound of their last album, now the kittens are ready to experiment.

And so the first track begins, "Elected Girl": obsessive and calm guitar, sweet and bored voice, background percussion; it almost feels like revisiting something from "Washing Machine" when the sound is conventional, not irreverent, as they had accustomed us in the past. And after the masturbatory "Surf's up", which adds nothing and takes nothing away, the masterpiece of the album arrives, as well as the excerpt, "Seasick."

Here lies the entire essence of the work: a very sweet accommodating nausea, but that for this very reason, suffocates, somewhat like present times, with its false benevolence and prevailing moderation. Discordant but strangely harmonious guitars, double voices at times skewed and at times simply perfect. In short, it almost feels like a veiled social denunciation in music and noise.

And then hypnosis arrives, but maybe also boredom, with the captivating "Free Kitten on the Mountain", fortunately broken by the splendid aggressiveness of tracks like "Bananas," "Roughshot", and "The Poet." But here there's also room for the lo-fi of tracks like "Billboard" and "Help me", and also for long sonic lounges, as in the case of "Monster eye."

It's not a bad comeback for Free Kitten, although they could have dared more.

But one thing is certain: in our times these soft meows can hurt more than any scream.