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King's X: King's X
31/03/10 || InquisitorGeneralis
King’s X are a tough band to wrap your head around. If you read this you can clearly see that the bossman around here is not a fan. However, he is a fan of Evanescence and an angry person in general. I, on the other hand, am I bit more forgiving when it comes to King’s X… at least when it comes to their 1992 release “King’s X”: a decent record with a few memorable songs.
WARNING If you can not stand music that does not contain endless gravity blastbeats or mindnumbing baby-in-a-blender vocals you will absolutely not enjoy King’s X and no matter what I say this review will be a meaningless to you as reconciliation and by all means go listen to some suicidal black metal and do us all a favor and kill yourself. Does this mean that listening to King’s X will make you cool? Or that King’s X is cool? Nope on both accounts. However, you should try and step out of your blasty, hyperdeath shell from time to time and check out something different. /:endrant
King’s X’s something different may or may not be it for you though. It is a long, painful stretch to describe this as 1000% metal, although there are certainly metal elements to be found. King’s X definitely stroll in twilight zone of hard rock… or as Lord Gay so eloquently put it in his coverage of this trio from Ole Mizziou shit rock. To me, the truth lies somewhere in between and there are a few reason’s why “King’s X” still gets a few spins from me even though my tastes usually go much, much heavier than this.
Most of the songs on here are slow to mid-speed rockers with the ballady “The big picture” tossed in for some soul. Honestly, “The big picture penis” is pretty good for a slower, more vagina-flavored song. “The world around me”, “Prisoner”, and “Black flag” are a bit heavier and pretty catchy. King’s X never get going fast or unleash and brutality but are able to get a nice low-end and groove going in most of their songs. While nothing on here will blow your fucken mind “King’s X” is a pretty listenable record all the way through… except for “Ooh song” which is pretty awful and gets oooooh skipped every time I give “King’s X” a turn.
Doug Pinnick’s vocals are all clean, all the time but not whiny or operatic and that is fine with me. The rest of the band is competent and Ty Tabor puts out a few goods lead riffs and solos so that is a plus. The drumming is simply and groovy, no double-trouble on the kicks or high speed insanity though. The production is excellent though and everything sounds clean and distinct. Overall, “King’s X” is not amazing or incredible and certainly not for you if you can’t stand anything that is closer in spirit to hard rock than deathextremetechnicalsuperblacktrve metal. It still finds it way into my rotation from time to time and guess there is some merit in that.
Nothing special, nothing new… but nothing terrible shitty either. An appropriate score for a moderately enjoyable album.
- Information
- Released: 1992
- Label: Atlantic
- Website: www.kingsxonline.com
- Band Info
- Doug Pinnick: bass, vocals
- Ty Tabor: guitar, vocals
- Jerry Gaskill: drums, vocals
- Tracklist
- 01. The World Around Me
- 02. Prisoner
- 03. The Big Picture
- 04. Lost in Germany
- 05. Chariot Song
- 06. Ooh Song
- 07. Not Just For the Dead
- 08. What I Know About Love
- 09. Black Flag
- 10. Dream in My Life
- 11. Silent Wind
