The Doppelganger
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To codify some lore.
- Image Credit: Album cover made by me using Canva
- Valentina Remenar "Broken"
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions:
- Links: Music | Galactic Top 40,000
- Media Name: Last of His Kind (album)
- Format: Music Album
- Distribution: Common
- Length: Short
- Description: The first and final solo album by Kai Bamarri, former singer of the band Friendzoned At the Funeral. The album was released posthumously and consists of tracks meant for a planned future FatF album, as well as previously unreleased demos written by Bamarri.
- Author: Kai Bamarri | Friendzoned At the Funeral
- Publisher: Corellia Digital
- Reception:
- "The long-awaited first (and last) solo album by FatF frontrunner Kai Bamarri has finally arrived. Like many listeners, I don't quite know what to think of it. Perhaps that is to be expected from a posthumous release consisting of disparate tracks cobbled together from various sources. At least there is a wide variety on display here, from the monster groove of the opening "Dead Don't Dance" to the piano and vocals heavy "Don't Take Your Love Away From Me" to the avant garde weirdness of "Song of Bamarre". It doesn't all gel, and some may have been better left on the cutting room floor ("Thrown Away" is the album's least imaginative offering), but then it was never supposed to be. This album is a product of unexpected tragedy, a promising career and fresh start cut sadly short." - Glup Shitto, music critic
- "If I were Kai Bamarri, I would've embraced being a powerful Sithspawn. Also I would not have died." - Darth Diabolis, Sith Lord
- "This is definitely religious music." - Bing Bong, music journalist
Last of His Kind was released on a variety of platforms. Limited edition physical copies of the album were also produced for collectors. Holomusic videos for the singles "Winter in My Heart" and "Don't Take Your Love Away From Me". The track "Song of Bamarre" gained further traction when it was used in a performance by competitive ice dancers Oona and Gage Lulani.
CONTENT INFORMATION
PERSONNEL:
- Kai Bamarri - vocals, piano (The Sith Acolyte)
- Starlin Rand - synths, guitar, vocals
- Miri Nimdok - vocals
TRACKLIST:
- Dead Don't Dance
- "If I wasn't in a band, I'd probably be a criminal." With this cheeky opening line, the album opener launches into a monster groove. All the classic ingredients of a FatF album are here, with the shredding guitar solo by Rand giving it a strong metal vibe. It seems designed (or at least chosen) to both ease the mind of the listener by giving them what they expect to hear, as well as prep them for when things take a very different turn.
- Winter In My Heart
- The somber heart of the album, it is also the most recent of all the material here, having been conceived while Bamarri was stranded with his former boss Alicio Organa on the planet Zaathru. Apparently Organa masqueraded as a wintry god to win over the natives.
- Don't Take Your Love Away From Me
- The album's lead single, the song is a melancholic ballad driven mainly by piano with a pleasing string section. It was purportedly written by Bamarri while serving a three year sentence in Azrael Asylum, during which he learned to play and sing.
- Thrown Away
- Industrial music using organic materials thunder along while Bamarri wails against abandonment. It feels personal, even if the music backing the lyrics is a little overproduced.
- The Universe Divide
- The most high-concept track on the album, "The Universe Divide" revolves around the idea of reincarnation. Bamarri uses his shapeshifting abilities to create different voices for each character, who dies and is then reborn as someone else.
- Last of His Kind
- A lament for genocide and extinction, Bamarri's ageless vocals give the otherwise low energy title track some much needed intensity. It certainly helps that the song's subject matter will always be topical...
- Bones of You
- A post-post-breakup song which seems to be trying to run from the lingering vestiges of the past even as it remains caught in its siren-song allure. Rand's DNA is more obvious on this one (he does some of the vocals) and it certainly suggests an interesting future for FatF.
- Song of Bamarre
- This is the one everyone's been talking about. A ten standard minute long cosmic symphony with Bamarri providing wordless, eerie vocals meant to evoke the crystal melodies of his native land, it almost doesn't sound like music. It's either so far into the future it's left the singularity in the dust, or so far in the past that it reached back into some primordial lizard part of the brain. It kind of rules, and is a fantastic sendoff for the album and the late Bamarri's short but promising career.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Last of His Kind was produced by Starlin Rand and released roughly a year after the death of Kai Bamarri, as a tribute to his late bandmate. It is assembled from demos and tapes of songs Bamarri wrote and sang, including tracks that were deemed "too weird for Friendzoned".
