A Small Turn Of Human Kindness

Small Turn's greatest strength is also its primary flaw; they do this particular sort of downtrodden as well as anybody, but given all they're capable of, it's a shame that they limit themselves to such a small sonic palette. Still, it's yet another curiously strong record from one of today's most interesting bands.

This quartet have honed thier lumbering heaviness into something both glorious and at times funny. [Aug 2010, p.82]

They roped everybody in, and now comes the payoff, in the form of the gut-wrenching, turgid, incredibly sad white trash opera A Small Turn of Human Kindness.

The songs here all flow together, with intertwined parts and themes-a sludge symphony of sorts.

Utterly, beautifully majestic.

A Small Turn Of Human Kindness really does sound like some bad shit has gone down. To this end, you have to assume HM have succeeded in their intentions, although they tend to be sardonic and inscrutable by design.

It's compelling from the start, particularly insofar as they not only avoid genre clichés but also cheap drama. Instead, they play emotionally ambiguous stuff--shifting modes and dynamics, or rather simply smashing them together until the edges are indistinct.

Tempos have been ground down to a slow crawl, but as Melvins and Sunn O))) have proven, that tactic just gives a band the chance to prove how heavy they really are. [Jun 2010, p.105]

Harvey Milk never quite match the achievement of their canonical works, but, nevertheless, they've succeeded in stretching the running joke without dissolving into self-parody. Or perhaps more aptly, they've delivered on the promise of self-parody with a record of genuine insecurity, unsettling pessimism and inherent, indisguisable humanity.

This is an album you can connect your own hopelessness with. It's weirdly relatable, this album, with not really its lyrical content but its various moods.

While lack of tunefulness has rarely been an issue for noise-rock fans, A Small Turn of Human Kindness's abstractness makes it a little less satisfying than its predecessor. But it's still a fascinating product of one of the more fascinating bands working in the bowels of rock 'n' roll today.

Human Kindness is interesting and it is, in a sense, an enjoyable listen because it manifests, right in your face, an emotion not often seen in music this heavy: sheer fucking exhaustion.