Kings Kaleidoscope Wrestles with Faith in Baptized Imagination
The Album is a more reserved yet very rocky journey on desiring healing.
The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard of (Unless you really love Lexus or Bumble) is back!
Kings Kaleidoscope is a loose collective of music nerds led by Chad Gardner; incorporating genres from Electronic, Jazz, Funk, Rock, to Hip-hop and Gospel, all while writing deeply about their faith.
In another article, I regard them as “The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard Of,” given that despite constant praise from fans and critics alike, they’re not a name prevalent in popular music publications, probably due to their religious themes.
With two albums already on the way, we get Baptized Imagination: A more reserved yet rocky journey on desiring healing.
The collective did not miss yet again with another addition to their spotless discography.
Don’t get me wrong, it manages to be an exciting record worth exploring that’s still entirely identical to what they’ve made before.
But I can’t put my finger on where, Baptized Imagination feels… different.
Baptized Imagination (nicknamed Bapi) takes most of its time in introducing patterns and play with it throughout the album to symbolize front man Chad Gardner’s cycle of doubts and discontentment.
Musically, it’s a lot more minimal, even bordering lo-fi beats territory.
But there’s always the healthy splash of syncopated melodies and occasional highs.
However, there are some occasional standouts, like the pop-leaning drop of Water Wasted, the cacophonous climax of JOY and the beauty of closer Past, Present, Future.
But what I really like to focus on is the lyricism and symbolism. Because, in a way, it gets fruity, or messy.
Many songs are chock-full of qualms, from asking deep things like “Wasn’t I worth it? to mean “Why am I experiencing so much anxiety?” to “I have you, but why do I still desire all the miscellaneous things I don’t need?”
I believe that even though it shows the more vulnerable sides of the journey, which signifies weakness to some,
It holds a lot of strength in resonating the fact that we’re not alone in feeling these things.
Though the band isn’t new to portraying their mental health through their compositions, some of the deep cuts serve nothing more as pawns in the album’s context.
Many tracks don’t resolve their burning desires until the proceeding tracks in the back half.
Though they’re great in the lyrical context of the album, I find it a bit risky on their own. Let me explain:
Their previous efforts, Beyond Control and Zeal in particular, are no stranger to concepts like wrestling with faith and struggles.
But despite the albums’ cohesive emotional narrative, the individual tracks can stand on their own, as profound reflections that don’t completely signify loss.
I can listen to Trackless Sea or About To Break without being bound in an album order, but still feel that the message can be complete, from beginning to end in a way.
The closest Kings K has felt like that, outside of Bapi, is Backwards, but even then, Chad’s narrative seems to be self-aware in its confessions.
Some songs from Baptized Imagination feel like the opposite; you really have to listen in the order the band intended to complete its narrative.
I’m not against that type of artistic expression that requires context of course, but it puts it down for me for a little bit.
I’ve seen some people interpret the album cover; Chad Gardner wrapping his face with a white veil with assorted flowers, to symbolize the shrouds in burials, meaning abandoning your old life.
Though I try to delve less into faith with every review, I really have to with this one, seeing it’s the most special aspect of this record.
Deeper (Intro) is this hazy opener which based on the melody’s notes getting lower and lower, signify the downfall of one’s mental state.
And though I can pull some meaning from it, it feels like it’d be better off as the intro to Wasn’t I Worth It, not a track of its own.
Wasn’t I Worth It? is this soft introduction with a lowkey uneasy piano line, which subserves Chad asking something like “Wasn’t I worth anything, which is why I’m experiencing turmoil in my life?”
And something like “All I need is to hold on to you, and I’m still dying”
I’ve seen some people wished it was on streaming services before the album’s release, and I honestly don’t share that sentiment. It’s a track I wasn’t too crazy for, but it’s a whole lot better knowing the album though.
Walk Away feels sparse and jumbled with its use of samples and the light percussion. The lyricism feels equally uneasy, if not darker, being about confronting your demons, which at times, can feel like contemplating it.
Water Wasted reminds me a lot of powerhouse anthems stylistically, though it’s more out of a burst of emotions than a feeling of empowerment.
It also has one of my favorite metaphors in the whole album, Water Wasted is a track that directly talks to God, wondering if has he lost his patience.
Feeling like he’s wasting his time repenting over and over, wasting the water of baptism.
Look. At. Me. chronicles Chad’s tiredness in his repeated pattern of mistake and remorse, over a bed of choir samples and lowkey strings.
Feeling frustrated that first, he’s not improving sooner, second, he feels like God turned his back on him
That frustration continues in DOWN, where he really asks “I got you, why don’t I still have enough?” As in “Why do I desire more of these things even when I need not to? Especially when I am provided already”
“Why am I down on the way up?” as in “Why do I feel these negative things when my life is going up to you in the heavens.”
It’s definitely one of the highlights in the album, being a turning point lyrically and musically, as every track coming forward seems to be an upwards spiral to hope.
Every Death feels like a direct answer to DOWN, in the words of “When It’s a lifetime of not enough, maybe your cross is the bitter love I’m waiting on”
Every Death feels warmer with its melancholic guitar melody.
It’s the first of many brief interludes throughout this project, which for me, vary from “I wish this was longer” to “This didn’t need to be its own track”
Someday plays with an uplifting sounding melody even with its discordant rhythm, which I really thought was 6/4, but only the piano seems to be so. I’m stupid.
This is where Chad (or even God for that matter) assures that someday they will be together under the stars.
Nostalgia’s Violence is a naked vocoded ballad that, as many have pointed out, feels like the raw barrenness of Bon Iver.
Now this one took me a while before I could grasp its concept. The violence of nostalgia, from how others evaluate it, refers to the danger of looking back fondly to the past without realizing it was just as broken as the present.
In a Biblical sense, it’s like the people of Israel preferring their time as slaves in Egypt just because they’re lost on their way to the promised land.
The song itself sees Chad yearn for someone to breathe life into him, just “like in the past.”
Summer Wind is a pure instrumental referencing the summer wind from the previous track. It’s beautiful.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a wind metaphor used in a Christian song. Yeah, I like it.
Say No More is a brief arpeggiated interlude. It also contains the most basic, clearest message of what Chad wants to express. Say no more.
You & I Again is is one of my favorites, simply because it’s a tender moment of truth, Chad’s realization, coming to his senses, and in one of the few moments of solitude and tranquility, marks “I won’t hide again”
JOY is ultimately the antithesis to DOWN. In the manifestation of “I don’t have enough,” JOY sees Chad tell otherwise.
Now this is the peak of the album, being a pretty verbose track that concludes Chad’s qualms of his constant anxieties and doubts.
Despite Chad feeling like the past was just as broken as his present, he begins to see the times God has been with him throughout his life.
Past Present Future is Chad desiring to cement his faith free from doubts and uncertainties forevermore. It’s a prayer at its purest.
It’s the most beautiful track in all of Bapi with its layered harmonies of voices and strings.
Plus, it also leaves way for their follow-up. If not, it feels the briefest closer of all the times they’ve dabbled in album narratives.
Considering the song’s trajectory, their self-titled album next year could be focused similarly to Citizens’ Joy of Being, the final journey of healing.
In conclusion, Baptized Imagination isn’t a grand sweep of an album that reinvents the wheel, but then again does it have to?
It both achieves to be the most “album” album by the band, as in their most like one long cohesive track,
And the most supplementary, preceding their self-titled project releasing in April of 2023.
Welp, for me at least. The band has confirmed that their upcoming album isn’t connected in any way to this one. See you then.
This is an extended version of my album review on my Instagram: The Left Ear with Lee. Be sure to follow me on Medium and on Instagram. Thanks!
