Katinkera - "Lost Warbles" album review

written by Thomas

Published

Lost Warbles cover art

The "Let Them" Theory is new to me, to the point that I wondered if it had been coined by Katinkera themselves, but it turns out it is a real thing. As a method of dealing with the frustration caused by the behaviour of others, you accept the lack of control and "let them" be the way they are. That's probably fine if you're getting annoyed by someone whistling in the other room, but what if the thing frustrating you is the patriarchy? This refusal to accept the unacceptable state of our world is what Lost Warbles is all about.

These songs are angry. They're not loud, they don't shout, but they are angry at the forces that keep one gender down and the other in power. They are angry at the men who have the freedom "to be in charge and fuck it all". At trad wives, man spreaders, and wars. Those are just a handful of the targets in the fantastic opener, Bubble Wrap, a moody r&b bop that sets the tone for the rest of the album.

You might wonder if things get repetitive, but they don't. Although each of the four tracks here tackle the patriarchy in some way or another, they take different angles. Inches is a dark look at physical violence upon women at the hands of the men close to them, and might be the strongest track here. Meanwhile, Lost Warbles is more self reflective, where Chances is explicitly asking for equality and explaining in plain terms the reason for the anger.

The lyrics are strong throughout, which makes it something of a shame that they can be pretty hard to make out a lot of the time. There's so much that Katinkera is saying here and it would be nice to get the message without reading the lyrics as I go.

But still, even if you didn't understand a word, the tone is evident, the delivery is confident, and the beats are great.

Listen to "Lost Warbles"//Support Thomas

Comments

Thank you so much, Thomas, not just for your review but listening so closely to the lyrics as well. I can imagine it´s hard sometimes to face the reality of women but you really dug in and listened actively tho my vocals are muddy because I basically recoded them with a carrot in a hallway and still have so much to learn about recording and producing. Thank you. I´ll keep practising and will compress my vocals a lot more on the next album. <3 Just to clarify: I don´t have an issue at all with trad wives if they are ok with other women living their lives as it makes them happy instead of telling childless women they need to have kids and be in service of their husbands for whatever reason ;) Much love!

written by Katinkera