INXS – Kick (180g Vinyl LP)

Anchored by the sensual purr of vocalist Michael Hutchence and frisky drumming (recorded in analog) of Jon Farriss, INXS’ 6x Platinum 1987 masterwork Kick taps into a hybrid style that freshly stays away from the era’s plastic, manufactured sounds and narrow-minded, vacant aesthetic. A seamless fusion of dance beats, sleek rock riffs, soaring hooks, horn-fueled R&B, and string-laden accents, the 12-track set is an irresistibly catchy and liquidly fluid sonic miasma that contains every single element a classic contemporary pop work requires.

Above all, every song boasts a different feel and distinctive pace, characteristics that aren’t forced but natural results of the collective’s chemistry. The sexy, breathy pop-funk “Need You Tonight” clicks with interlocking arrangements and murmured vocals. The atmospheric, synth-drum-punctuated “Meditate” hallucinates with stream-of-conscious vocals and percolating grooves. Well-placed pauses, hypnotic flanged guitar passages, and so-funky-you’ll-sweat saxophone breaks pepper the liberating rock smash “New Sensation.”

1. Guns in the Sky
2. New Sensation
3. Devil Inside
4. Need You Tonight
5. Mediate
6. The Loved One
7. Wild Life
8. Never Tear Us Apart
9. Mystify
10. Kick
11. Calling All Nations
12. Tiny Daggers