Prathloons "The Kansas Wind" Review
Review by: Lucas Kurmis, Writer @KurmisTheFrog
Edited by: Eric Martin, Writer/Assistant Editor @eamartin95
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Prathloons are back with The Kansas Wind. This is their first release since their self-titled 2018 release, and this is maybe their best and certainly their most realized. The Kansas Wind is full of varying moods, changing dynamics, and complex flows and lyrical structures. It is an album that feels as it should. It feels like it’s exactly as it’s meant to be.
Conceptually, the album is about what the title suggests: The Kansas Wind. Collin shared that this title is a reference to a song called “My Life In Art” by Mojave 3, but the use of the wind goes beyond that. “I’m just kind of using the wind and the vastness of the sky to almost use nature as a metaphor to kind of usher in what once was and what now is,” explains Collin. Throughout the album, the air, the sky, and the wind are referenced in similar but always repositioned ways. “Drawings for Radio Time” talks about a character who “shouts in the sky / oh why can’t I?” “Resemblance of Mercy” has the lyrics, “The wind in my sails / it was perfected air.” The album closer, “Matthew I’m Flying,” mentions a loss of flight, mourning “my materials for flying home / they’re all lost / inside this house,” but then rejoices in another person flying in the immediately following lyrics which close out the album: “the Kansas wind / under your wings.” Taken together, it reaches the point where you could even call this a concept album both exploring the real stories and emotions that these lyrics come from as well as this story exploring flying and the sky as a central concept to carry these feelings and tie them together.
Varied and Complex
But those are just some of my takeaways, and of course, anyone can take away a lot of different meanings from this. I think the important thing here is that there is a lot that you can take away from this album just from thinking over the lyrics, and there’s a lot to the concept of air that you can apply to these interpretations.
Musically, this album is also extremely layered and realized. There is of course some rock outfit arrangement of guitar, vocals, bass, and drums throughout the album, but beyond that, there are moments of synth, pitch modified vocals, a saxophone at certain points, and horns at other points, even a xylophone at the end. And again, there is variation of all of this throughout. There are certain points where the vocals are quiet and drawing the listener in and other moments where Collin is screaming out lyrics. Instruments are mixed in interesting ways as well, with several instances of instruments panning around, and others where each instrument finds a different spot in the mix, giving a feeling of being surrounded by the music. Again, this just seems like one of those albums where everything feels intentional, down to each instrument and each moment in the mix.
Lyrically, the album is just as varied and complex. Instead of simple ABAB patterns, Collins seems more interested in trying more complicated patterns. Without getting into specifics, it seems like the way that Collin uses rhyming and meter is always changing and reshaping in exciting ways. Sometimes there will be quick and short lines, and then suddenly they might change into something longer, or the inverse. The word choice as well is exciting and unique. Unique like calling a song “Chagrin,” and letting the word chagrin be in the closing line of the song. Unique like the lyrics “nauseating sentiment.”
Warmth in the Dark
To me, this album reads as generally optimistic, though that’s again my asserting my own interpretation of it. The album is musically, lyrically, and emotionally varied enough that you can have a lot of takeaways. There is darkness in lyrics like “he grabs his gun when he hears his name” in the song “Drawings for Radio Time,” but then a lot of warmth in a lot of the instrumentation of the same song. There is darkness in the lyrics of the title track “the skin behind the fridge,” but then that’s followed by “Matthew I’m Flying,” which seems to end on a positive note with the line “the Kansas wind / under your wings” coupled with a jam that lasts about five minutes and is worth the time it spends on it. It feels like a celebration of the album and the ideas it covers.
Collin ultimately says that this album is about love, and I can take away a warm energy even with some darkness within it. Again, this album is incredibly varied, but, again, it does feel warm in the end.
Watch Lucas’s full interview with Collin Dall of Prathloons’ on our Patreon and listen to Prathloons’ The Kansas Wind wherever you stream your music.
