Kinski Play NYC’s Cake Shop

"We're not doing a lot of stuff from the new record, but if you want to hear it, you can buy it here," offered frontman Chris Martin a few songs into Kinski's headlining set a the Cake Shop in New York City on Thursday night (April 11), a gig that kicked off the Seattle quartet's brief 2013 spring tour of the Northeast. And they didn't play much from the excellent 'Cosy Moments,' which dropped just last week, opting instead for a set that dug into their deep catalog and even featured a couple covers.

Not that anyone was complaining. Even though Kinski also ignored perhaps their best-known record, 2003's 'Airs Above Your Station,' the band still managed to showcase its signature sound, which earns frequent nods to Sonic Youth, Mogwai and Unwound. During extended passages featuring the guitar interplay of Martin and Matthew Reid-Schwartz, locked-in, fuzzed-out power chords gave way to lengthy, spiraling solos of neo-psychedelic grandeur. At one point, Reid-Schwartz even picked up his trusty flute for a delay-drenched woodwind solo.

When they finally did dig into 'Cosy Moments,' like on 'Last Day on Earth,' the night's penultimate cut, they did so with reckless, garage-rock abandon. The two covers, takes on tunes by the Clean and Love as Laughter, were delivered with equal intensity, and drummer Barrett Wilke held things down behind the kit with tight beats and well-timed cymbal washes. For a taste of 'Cosy Moments,' check out our free MP3 download of the disc's 'Conflict Free Diamonds' here.

But the whole affair wasn't without its problems. The sound definitely suffered at times from a weak mix, with bassist Lucy Atkinson's low end sometimes coming across as little more than a soft thump below the layers of guitar din.

Kinski seemed a little loose -- perhaps a little too loose -- at Cake Shop, but it was, after all, opening night. By the time they return to NYC for a gig on April 19 at Brooklyn's Death by Audio, expect Martin and company to be firing on all cylinders. And maybe they'll even spend a few more moments with 'Cosy Moments.'