Oklahoma City’s Kill the Reflection has come a long way.
What began as a trip-hop group in 1999 has morphed into a post-punk band that does moody with the best of them. Heavily indebted to Joy Division and Interpol — yet inspired by acts as varied as Deftones, Iggy Pop and Sade — Kill the Reflection has become a potent concoction of genres, ideas and feelings alike.
“Mainly, we want to take all the things that we have trapped inside our heads and our hearts, and throw them into a meat grinder and condense them into this edible mixture that satisfies your appetite and your mind, in hopes that your ears will enjoy it, too,” singer and guitarist Morgan Routt said. “We don’t want a burger named after us … but a beer would be nice.”
If there’s anything tying it all together, it’s a certain darkness and emotional weight that KTR sums up perfectly with its tagline: “Music for broken people.”
“This band and its music, to us, is medicine,” Routt said. “It’s comfort music as much as it is anger management. ‘Broken people’ does not necessarily mean you’re broken, but rather, you might understand the tale of a broken person best, having lived it at one time.”
It’s something that Routt relates to, as do drummer Christopher Stevens and bassist Mark Martinez.
“Having been blanketed in music since birth, when no one else was around, the music was always there as an escape,” Routt said. “Getting so lost in music as a kid and not wanting to come back … music is so therapeutic.”
He’s heard more than a few people mention how Kill the Reflection has helped them through a rough time in some fashion; he couldn’t hope for more.
“Our proudest moments would be all the feedback we have received about how a certain song is perfect for someone’s situation or past,” he said. “It pleases us the most when we look out
into the crowd and see them singing along. It means they really do share
something with these songs.”
Following up its debut release last year, KTR is prepping an EP for early 2013 whose songs represent only minor changes to the formula; the band knows not to try fixing what isn’t broken.
“These songs seem to explode in just the right spots and have a swampy dark feel to them, some with a more upbeat tone,” Routt said. “It is still a baby and is growing, but we want it to take you to a dimension of awe.”
This article appears in Oct 24-30, 2012.