How To: Friend, Love, Freefall

It takes some moxie to name your band Rainbow Kitten Surprise, because it sounds like either a Japanese game show or a bubblegum band from the '60s (there was a band called Peppermint Rainbow). But these guys are from North Carolina, and perform what can be generally called indie rock, albeit with a funky texture. Their album, How To: Friend, Love, Freefall, is pretty good.

The sound is sort of a combo of space-age stuff with rap, although distinctly white-guy rap. This is from Mission to Mars:

"Heard it booming at parties, whispered in homes
The pundits on the radio won't leave it alone
I heard it once, heard it twice
Heard it well enough to tell
They say the Mission To Mars, is destined to fail now"

There's also a kind of kids playing in the basement vibe, such as on Fever Pitch:

"Hallelujah
The iron king sings a song for the lover
The leaver, the lonely, and like
Young love waits
If I can then I'll meet you at the gate of St. Peter
When the fever takes my mind
My god she came singing my name
Sounded like rain on the mountain
While I burned alive
Young flame burns soft as a candle
Lit between our two hearts
Just beats apart in the dark"

This lyric from "Hide" speaks to me somehow:

"I got some radio wires soldered to my heart
You're the only thing that's coming in
I'm getting static from my better sense
Nothing on the FM
See, I've been praying for a signal
A sign that you haven't sent
You might be an angel falling from the Heavens
Or a stranger from a garden party drunk and roaming ever since"

The music is danceable, or more specifically, makes one move their feet in patterns that might look like dancing. What comes across most is an ethereal no-fucks-given attitude: these guys will probably never hit it huge, but they seem fine with that, just doing their thing. They met as students at Appalachian State University, which seems like the home of shit-kicking country rather than sophisticated groovy funk, so I will be interested to hear where they go next.