The Kiss That Took A Trip – ‘Thirty in Twenty: The Collection’ [Album Review]

Madrid’s The Kiss That Took A Trip is shaped by the instincts of M.D. Trello, its creator and resident everything-doer. On Thirty in Twenty: The Collection, a sprawling 30-track double album, Trello surveys two decades of shape-shifting work with confidence and grand aplomb. The result is confirmation of a singular musical inspiration in motion.

The collection moves with startling fluidity through alternative pop, guitar-driven rock, electronic textures, ambient drift, post-rock atmospherics, and chamber-pop detail, but what’s most striking is how unified it all feels. Even at its most stylistically wide-ranging, Trello’s music carries a distinct internal logic: a taste for contrast, an instinct for melodic surprise, and a refusal to let genre operate as a boundary.

Founded in Madrid in 2006, The Kiss That Took A Trip has functioned as Trello’s fiercely independent outlet from the beginning, and that self-sufficiency remains central to its appeal. There’s a liberating lack of compromise in this music, the result of an openness to experiment. Across the album, you can hear a project evolving from largely instrumental, exploratory ambient post-rock into more immediate forms of electronic-tinged alt-pop and rock, where vocals often take center stage.

Thirty in Twenty reveals a body of work willing to keep changing contours while preserving its identity. The three new songs, “We are what we protect,” “Forevermore,” and “Mimosa,” don’t feel tacked on. Rather, they extend the arc of the project. Reworked versions of “Three girls” and “Vanilla killer” suggest an artist still interested in revisiting the past to make changes.

Even Trello’s cover of Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses” fits neatly within that perspective. Described as quirky, it is a bit off-center and magnificently strange. Those two qualities, playful but precise, eccentric without becoming careless, run throughout the compilation.

What makes The Kiss That Took A Trip especially compelling, though, is the philosophy surrounding the music: free digital releases under Creative Commons, full artistic autonomy, distance from any type of scene and industry expectations, computer-based production, no live show, and almost no self-mythologizing.

Thirty in Twenty: The Collection doesn’t just celebrate longevity; it celebrates the rare freedom of an artist who has spent 20 years answering only to his own imagination.

The Kiss That Took A Trip, photo courtesy of artist

Of the numerous tracks on the album, entry points include “Skull and crossbones,” a blend of dreamy alt-rock with tints of art-rock and pop. There’s a British flavor to the melody, highlighted by gleaming, brushed guitars and silky vocals.

A personal favorite because of its low-slung harmonic textures and syncopated rhythm, “Tastes like copper” features a wistful, shimmering melody and deliciously gentle vocals. Vaguely reminiscent of Pink Floyd, the atmospheric prog-rock surfaces of “Blue is the flame” glide and undulate on a crisp, creamy cadence. Tolling bell accents make Trello’s vocals mysterious and fateful.

There’s a wonderfully charming, scintillating quality to “Champions of delay,” while “Three girls” summons up memories of the Eurhythmics’ Annie Lennox. “Fangs” sounds like something Talking Heads would have performed, even with its hints of jazz.

For some reason, “Comedian mum,” with its retro feel, channels a lysergic version of Vanilla Fudge blended with Al Stewart.

On Thirty in Twenty: The Collection, The Kiss That Took A Trip exhibits his tremendous gift for melodies and his plush voice.

Thirty in Twenty: The Collection Track Listing:

1. Skull and crossbones [30 in 20 remaster]
2. Sound and immaculate [30 in 20 remaster]
3. Mimosa
4. Forevermore
5. Tastes like copper [30 in 20 remaster]
6. Blue is the flame [30 in 20 remaster]
7. Goodbye horses [30 in 20 remaster]
8. Champions of delay [30 in 20 remaster]
9. Amplification of the senses [30 in 20 remix]
10. Crapola [30 in 20 remaster]
11. 3 year flu [30 in 20 remaster]
12. Copernicus [30 in 20 remaster]
13. The truth about Lucifer [30 in 20 remaster]
14. We are what we protect
15. Three girls [30 in 20 re-recording]
16. Happy birthday party monster [30 in 20 remaster]
17. Ambient punk [30 in 20 remaster]
18. Bad heavens [30 in 20 remaster]
19. Fangs [30 in 20 remaster]
20. Heartbreak leave [30 in 20 remaster]
21. Delirious romance [30 in 20 remaster]
22. Vanilla killer [30 in 20 re-recording]
23. The dailies [30 in 20 remaster]
24. Irma Vep [30 in 20 remaster]
25. Everything is disappointing [30 in 20 remaster]
26. Comedian mum [30 in 20 remaster]
27, Love + algebra [30 in 20 remaster]
28, Flower of gas and smoke [30 in 20 remaster]
29. Faulty logic can cost lives [30 in 20 remaster]
30. Stock footage [30 in 20 remix]

Run Time: 2 hours 35 minutes
Release Date: April 7, 2026
Record Label: Independent