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Kid Dakota, "So Pretty"
Originally self-released as a five-song EP in 2001, Kid Dakota's expanded version (his debut full-length) arrives with three new tracks on Low's Chairkickers Union Music. (Low's own Zak Sally even joins the Minneapolis duo on bass on several tracks.) For a two-man outfit—Christopher McGuire on percussion and Darren Johnson contributing vocals, guitar, and all other instruments—Kid Dakota is electric. Jackson's songwriting and unvarnished angst break forth with surprising ferocity given that most of his songs feature two- (or three- or four-) part vocal harmonies and languorous guitar solos.
These decorative touches emerge like hard rock-inspired indulgences over otherwise straight-forward, sparse arrangements. It's as if you stripped the orchestra from the heavy metal power ballad, and then most of the heavy metal, but still found songs that were slightly glamorous, not a little trashy, perhaps even desperate, but definitely beautiful and raw. Jackson's voice, like that of an anemic angel, floats between humming guitars and sparkling cymbal crashes. Sweet, lazy, and clear, almost every trembling note is about pain. Lyrics touch on substance abuse and betrayal but inevitably return to the dull, debilitating conviction that one has become a cipher. Jackson, whose bloody face stares from the album cover in a candid snapshot from darker times, has said that while he is now completely sober, 'So Pretty' is a testament to the darkness of his worst years. But what great hooks! With several tracks actually waltzing into lilting crescendos, the music sustains humor and warmth if not hope throughout all sorts of miserable scenarios. Thus, although on the way there's a cheating girlfriend, getting dumped, alcoholism, heroin addiction, more alcoholism, meaningless sex, and murder—the last song, "The Overcoat," is emblematic of it all. Ending on a slightly higher note (detox), Jackson is still morbidly fatalistic ("maybe better but more likely it's worse") but even if nothing changes and even in the face of nothing itself, one has to keep moving: "And it's New Year's Eve / There's nothing to do there's nowhere to go / So I get a pass from my counselor to walk in the snow / Maybe going in circles again but it's hard to say / 'Cause my tracks keep filling up with snow and they fade away." 
 
