Sometimes you look at a record and think, “Yep, this is gonna suck.” In this case, I’m referring to Fell For the Gift by Kandi Coded. Look at the terrible spelling for the name. Look at that album cover. My gut reaction was, “This either rips off Korn or Insane Clown Posse. Either way I’m fucked.” Turns out it’s neither; the band is simply a few self-pitying diatribes away from being the perfect parody of grunge. That’s nothing new, but what makes Gift so disheartening is the presence of Jack Endino.
Endino, in case you forgot, is the producer behind Nirvana’s Bleach, Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff and High on Fire’s Death is This Communion. Oh, and Blood Guts & Pussy by the Dwarves. The guy has some serious credentials, and the fact that he produced and played guitar on Gift has to count for something, right?
Wrong. Endino’s involvement makes the record marginally noteworthy, but it doesn’t make it good. Sure, he recorded it well enough – the guitars are gritty and the drums sound huge. But the songs are laughable. While the occasional success will break through (“Hurt When It Bleeds” has a touch of Matt Pike’s ferocity in the vox), generally the record fails. The songs that make the biggest impression tend to be the worst, like “Walk Away,” which boasts a mind numbingly repetitive rhyme scheme and empty promises of a fist fight or some shit. It’s brainless mook music. Grunge devolved into self-parody well before this record came along, but Gift makes the genre's shortcomings that much more obvious.
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