KING KRULE – Six Feet Beneath The Moon
01. Easy Easy
02. Border Line
03. Has This Hit?
04. Foreign 2
05. Ceiling
06.Baby Blue
07. Cementality
08. A Lizard State
09. Will I Come
10. Ocean Bed
11. Neptune Estate
12. The Krockadile
13. Out Getting Ribs
14. Bathed in Grey
And suddenly there it is. The first and long awaited album of the youngest boy with the most adult voice so far. Yes, we talk about ZOO KID aka DJ JD SPORTS aka KING KRULE to name just a few names of Archie Marshall. This first longplayer is called Six Feet Beneath The Moon and is successfully carrying on of what the first King Krule EP gave a little foretaste.
We’ve waited for this British wunderkind who had our curiosity since the first video for Out Getting Ribs rattled around the internet in late 2010. What we saw back in the days was a boy who shouted and mumbled, who gasped and screamed, alone besides a dog in a nearly empty room. All his words and phrases between the scales, not exactly tuned into them, everything always a bit out of tempo. Just this extraordinary voice and a droning single surf like guitar.
Since then that whole thing changed a little. The lonely boy became a band, what means there’s now a second guitar, a hyperactive drum kit, some warm and groovy bass work and sometimes also a bunch of winds and synthesizers that highlighting the record. Luckily those mass of 14 songs still bring the unique twang guitars that embedded KING KRULE‘s sound somewhere between a classic retro mood and highly modern pop music. Furthermore a fine and decent jazz note was added and sometimes Marshall’s singing turns more into a rap like structure, especially when the beats become stumbling. Marshall showed his own and urgent flow already on the last MOUNT KIMBIE single You Took Your Time, and now his own album is also floating between rattling old school snare drums and his special fine bell like guitar sounds that remembering us on the BEATLES‘ pop as well as SONIC YOUTH’s wavy times. With his band he’s able to create a new, distinct and well balanced sound, clear and purposeful. Six Feet Beneath The Moon manages a balancing act between classic rock songs and experimental pieces, from hip hop to dream pop while it shows an eclectic mixture of old and new songs Every song is driven by his powerful lyrics, from the early songs to his newest.
All those is shown perfectly on the albums second Boarder Line, a new one, and a nice uptempo tune with an unexpected chorus and dreamy guitar walls. Furthermore the emotional Has This Hit, already known as an early B-side, appears too and starts as a gloomy statement full of anger until it peaks with the line “I know when I look into the sky there is no meaning / and I’m the only one believing that there’s nothing to believe in” and breaks up later with light and bright guitars. Another highlight is the song Baby Blue with it’s beautiful clean guitars and a trip hop like drum roll that floats among room and space. A Lizard State takes another direction with hectic and virtuous drums and jazzy trumpet fills but without getting shocking. Even KING KRULE‘s already mentioned debut single Out Getting Ribs appears in a new album version just before the end of the album. With a pinch of distortion on guitar and a bit more room on voice, it sounds matured more adult now. And so does the whole album.
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