Kimono Lights
Trick or Thriller

I am an idiot.
Apart from the fact that by 2025 surrounding yourself with CDs and vinyl when practically with €10 a month you have access to at least 2/3 of the music recorded from the '50s to today, all the most important, even though there are still some gaps (yes Spotify, I'm talking to you)...
I was saying, this is enough to understand that if one were a bit smarter - and not an audiophile - they would spend less money on music and more on something 'useful' (in the practical sense), like changing the car tires when it's time, or buying a new razor instead of struggling with the old one that's almost dead.

But the truth, I already wrote, is that I am an idiot. And every time it happens, I buy far more albums than necessary, just because maybe I like the cover, or the title, or the band's name, or - more rarely - I read something noteworthy about them somewhere. And so I found myself more than a year ago, in the midst of a listening period -gaze, buying this CD by the Italian band Kimono Lights from their Bandcamp page, along with their first album (because shipping costs the same, how could you not amortize it?).
It arrived, I set it aside thinking I'd listen to it sooner or later, then other CDs ended up on top of it, and then even a bit of dust, and the moral of the story is that I listened to the CD today, more than two years after purchase.
And it's not even that masterpiece. The album, and the band, fall into that shoegaze revival from a few years ago. That period that goes from the third album by My Bloody Valentine released surprisingly in 2013, with then all the reunions of various Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive, Ride, etc. up until, let's say before COVID, but in reality, it would be even earlier.

And the formula is always that of a rock weighed down by expansive guitars, but with a hint of punk energy, which however is almost always dampened, suffocated by the sea of reverberations and distant voices. You almost can't hear the beat of the hi-hat or ride, you could almost say that the album plays it all on a direct and overwhelming atmosphere, but without strong melodies or themes that truly distinguish the songs from one another.
So yeah, I even care for these Kimono Lights, but the album is quite mediocre in my opinion, and maybe it's also due to a deliberately independent and raw, unrefined production.
But then, with €10 I could've listened to the album on Spotify, I would've liked it so-so and moved on, but instead, now I have this CD that I probably won't listen to again.
And if the story ended with the group's two CDs, it would be passable, but I have hundreds of albums bought this way, without a criterion, only to enrich a collection that, in the end, is random and not targeted. Music that who knows when I will listen to, a situation that sometimes makes me sincerely doubt whether I would really give more value to the music than those who listen to Spotify, just because I paid for it upfront.

So what can I say, the shoegaze revival from about ten years ago had also touched me quite closely, since for two years I had a band that more or less also drew from that style, and moreover, I also had the opportunity to join Rev Rev Rev, obviously not realized.
Because as I was writing at the beginning, I am an idiot.
But the important thing is to accept it.