We carry on into Saturday with one of the Sounds of 2013…
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[5.45]
Rebecca A. Gowns: King Krule uses the details of his time and place — the Bobby on the beat, the dead-end job, the Tesco — to express something universal: the moment of grace amid struggle. The lyrics are so particular, and so small, that they could have been ripped verbatim from a teen diary entry. Shaped as they are in King Krule’s voice, rumbling and raw, and hovering in this sparse production, the words are transformed; the adolescent enervation becomes fuller, more tangible. And then, from the muck of anxiety, something blooms: the chorus reverberates, and the thin boy walking down the cold streets of London becomes a torch, warm and glowing.
[10]
Madeleine Lee: The skill here is in the balance of contradictions, using contrast to throw the main point into relief. It’s a song about hopelessness in a heart-stirring major key (“if you’re going through hell, just keep going”), and its emotional peak is also the point where it empties out sonically, a scream of frustration let loose into a void that dulls to a self-conscious mumble.
[7]
Anthony Easton: The only thing I feel guilty about is how I am often morally exhorted by works who intended to do that task. Feeling good after feel good makes me dirty. This didn’t even give me the frisson of shame.
[4]
Juana Giaimo: There is a certain bestiality in King Krule’s voice that doesn’t match with the minimalistic instrumentation. Maybe the disgust in his words should be enough to contain that raw and emotional side, but really, sometimes I wish he would shut up.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: Realism on the sparsest of sets. Not a compliment when the Pet Shop Boys said it, and not here either. The lyrics’ stench of “I saw the trailer of a Shane Meadows film once” isn’t far off The Enemy’s “We’ll Live And Die In These Towns”, and people laughed at them; at least that actually had its urgency, conviction and production going for it. “Easy Easy” just sounds as if Jamie T decided to sabotage the remainder of his record deal. Even Jake Bugg is preferable to this.
[3]
Iain Mew: If we must have guitar led tales of gritty realness by teenage guys I’ll take this over Jake Bugg‘s any time. There’s at least something approaching new in the wide open rawness of “Easy Easy” and its tender guitar playing. King Krule’s gurning vocal style is as indigestible as his week out of date sandwich, though.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: WANTED: Lovely skeletal song seeks singer. No need to be professional or even particularly good, but would prefer if you didn’t sound intentionally bad.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: A little surf-rock, by which I mean I think a shark tore out his throat.
[2]
Brad Shoup: You know the rumor that Jandek was some neglected rich kid whose dad threw a guitar into the basement? I often think of that when I listen to King Krule. “Easy Easy” is maybe the most Corwoodian track on the record: a propulsive, twangy low-ender with text that scans like Arctic Monkeys liner notes run through the dryer. Don’t mistake me, though: the lonely burnout thing is my catnip, and this thing’s got an actual chorus. And what sounds like an EBow plucks this thing off its plateau. It shatters my fragile illusion that HRH improvised it all, but the song’s the thing.
[7]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Billy Bragg-esque in its stark, guitar-led drawling, but grimmer in delivery and imbued with sensitively applied ambient swirling. At its core, there’s a barked line that’s either hopelessly bleak or a positive affirmation: “If you going through hell, we just keep going”. It’s “just because you’re going forwards, doesn’t mean I’m going backwards” again, but more resilient twenty years on.
[8]
Alfred Soto: He’s got a sound: a vibrating basso and strummed electric guitar (imagine a bullfrog singing Billy Bragg songs). The songs will come soon.
[6]