Kings Kaleidoscope - The Beauty Between (2017)

Kings Kaleidoscope is literally (in Chris Traeger's voice) the best thing that ever happened to my taste in music. They partially restored my faith in Christian music's ability to be good (not an easy thing to do for me). Their only two full-length albums have gotten perfect scores from me, and one of them is even in my top 5 albums of all time. Some people would argue I have a massive bias towards them and their music.

To a point, I agree: I am biased towards Kings Kaleidoscope's material. Here's the thing, though: it's actually that good. More so than almost any other artist in Christian music, they blend musical ingenuity with superb songwriting and lyricism. Their debut flipped the switch on a new generation of worship music, while their sophomore effort progressed their sound into a relatively sparser palette while also shifting their aim from worship music to music for the Christian life.

Continuing their near-perfect catalog is their latest release, The Beauty Between. This is a much different release for the band because of its more hip-hop oriented nature. It sounds like something that wouldn't work for an incredibly intricate indie rock group, but somehow these guys just produce the crap out of these thirty-one minutes to produce some of the coolest music I've heard this year.

I think what makes The Beauty Between stand out so much is that it's not exactly hip-hop or indie rock; rather, it sits in some place in between the two that perfectly straddles the divide between the two genres. Listening to the opening title track makes this so readily apparent: there's a really cool, funky syncopated bass line that gets paired with a drum beat that's slightly straighter but still syncopated but in an entirely different way. If you're lost in my description here, that's because it's really, really difficult to put into words what's going on in this song, and the same goes for most of the mixtape. It's so intricately produced and composed that to really understand what's going on sonically takes several listens. This might sound like it's not worth it, but when you can listen to an album time after time and find something new in every song, it makes the album so ridiculously exciting that you just can't not put it on repeat.

As far as the lyrics are concerned, The Beauty Between is more poetic and more meaningful than just about anything else I've heard in the last couple months. "Sometimes Phoenix" epitomizes this perfectly. Usually, when the metaphor of a phoenix is used in lyrics, it symbolizes rebirth and renewal; however, Chad Gardner (the brains and voice of Kings Kaleidoscope) goes an entirely different route here. He uses the phoenix to symbolize captivity and loneliness as well as rebirth, saying that the rebirth that comes from the ashes makes him feel alone, even though he knows his God is still with him. That's an incredibly rich idea that still has me chewing on it. "Phoenix" segues beautifully into the next track "Safe Retreat," in which Chad continues on the same train of thought and talks about hiding in the safe retreat of God's arms when he feels lonely and alone in the storms of life. Honestly, the entire mixtape does a great job with maintaining a steady flow of theme in the lyrics, and when paired with the hip-hop infused music it just works perfectly.

There's never a moment when I'm listening to The Beauty Between that I feel a misstep or that the music takes me out of the listening experience. That is a very seldom feeling for me with any music, and when something is this complicated it's even more rare. It's also the reason I have my love affair with Kings Kaleidoscope in the first place: they suck me in and don't let me out of their music until they're done saying what they're gonna say. On The Beauty Between, the same holds true, and I can guarantee that it will be in heavy rotation for the next several months for just that reason.

My rating: 5/5

My favorite tracks: "The Beauty Between," "Sticks & Stones," "Rain"