It's curious to note how meeting a band can have a profound impact on the way you hear their music. I think it's inevitable. I know that as soon as I'm able to attach faces and personalities to the performers, those attributes become inseparable from the music they create. I will picture them playing along in my mind as I listen. I'll attempt to read deeper into the lyrics and their meaning. I'll tune in better to the music idioms they employ and where they came from. I'll pay more attention to the studio elements of the recording like trying to guess which effects they use and what thought processes went into the pre-production. Of course, the outcome of feelings is all affected by whether meeting the people ends up as a positive or negative experience. It can easily ruin a band for me.

So it was with great apprehension that I went to pick up the guys from Kevlar at the airport. Somehow I had gotten myself involved with booking them a week of shows for their first tour in the US and I was going to help drive, too. What was I thinking? Can the transition from fan to business associate pan out? Would we even get along? Furthermore, would ”The Great Collapse”, one of my favorite records from 2002, become forever tainted by the experience? Thankfully, the answer ended up being a firm no.

When I first listened to ”The Great Collapse” it didn't fully blow me away, but I couldn't dismiss it either. I knew that I liked it, but it took deeper listening before I really, truly 'got it.' I think that's the case with most records that are able to stand the test of time. Ever get a record, fall immediately in love, and then leave it forever just a few weeks later? Happens to me all the time. Anyhow, it was after a week or two of revisiting the album that it all started to seep in: the subtle melodies, the intricacy of the arrangements, the clever sonic nuances. It all sounded so simple at first, but there really is so much more going on underneath. It's the dense guitar textures that really got me. What a relief it is to hear a band that rarely resorts to using plain ol' power chords! No, Kevlar rises above their influences (Sonic Youth, Swervedriver, Fugazi, etc) by using the sounds and styles they pioneered in new ways. There is a lot of complex melodicism at work here and it's not just limited to the guitars. The addition of subtle keyboards and the way everything is layered in the mix only serves to heighten the overall experience.

Now, after touring with the guys for a week, I've come to an even better appreciation of their work. The fact that they're all super nice dudes helps quite a bit, but it's really much more than that. Now that I've actually seen the chord fingerings they use, I can better deconstruct their songs. The individual parts are much clearer to me, as are the ways they employ syncopation and dissonance. Listening and watching them play the same tunes every night didn't get old, as I feared it might. Especially on a song like ”Ultimo”, which they would often use to close the show. The album version sounds so smooth that I never really noticed the complicated rhythmic interplay between the parts. Listening and watching them play the song live made me pay closer attention to what they were actually doing so now I have a much clearer understanding of the arrangement.

Putting the CD on these days doesn't just make me rock out – it also fills me with a sense of nostalgia and pleases me on many more levels. When the choruses open up and get huge, I still get excited. Singer Johan Sellman's screams are more poignant having met him and seen how mild mannered he normally is. And now I can appreciate the minute details, too. It's the subtleties that take the album to the next level. ”The Great Collapse” is a CD that I will cherish for a long, long time.