Keep Walking or I'll Kill You

Recorded in their spare room, Agnes Kain's debut album Keep Walking or I'll Kill You has a disingenuous charm that's somewhere between homemade and more cultivated indie pop. Chanelle Afford has a slightly tremulous girlish voice that some might find to be a bit of an acquired taste, but projects winsome sincerity. If the songs themselves aren't quite childish, there's nonetheless a touch of whimsical naïveté to the arrangements, with their playful melodies and touches of melodica, glockenspiel, mandolin, and viola around a pop/rock base. There's an air of innocence about the compositions themselves too, with their pensive yet sing-songy reflections on family, loved ones, childhood, and detailing of small betrayals and endearments. There's a little more going on in some songs than is first apparent from their surface breeziness, however, especially in "All Time High," with its depiction of global warming-like catastrophe. It's recommended to those who enjoy the similarly homespun, at times folky feel of much indie pop on the K label, for instance, but might at least occasionally want a little more texture and refinement in the production and songwriting.