Cherry Red [Release date 28.04.23]

Anyone who got truly tuned into King’s X will be familiar with words like “memorable”, “original”, “intoxicating”. These and other such qualifiers being liberally used in reviews of the band’s albums down through the years.

Our only objection might be that these adjectives don’t go far enough.

Dug Pinnick, Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskell challenged every convention of rock, funk, psychedelia and pop. Sometimes it was a hard sell, but they always stayed within the lines, always writing and recording real songs, always entertaining.

And so, the six albums on the Atlantic label are boldly presented in a Clydebuilt cardboard box, emblazoned with with the band’s instantly identifiable logo.

CD1 : Out Of The Silent Planet (1988)
CD2 : Gretchen Goes To Nebraska (1989)
CD3 : Faith Hope Love (1990)
CD4 : Kings X (1992)
CD5 : Dogman (1994)
CD6 : Ear Candy (1995)

Out Of The Silent Planet (1988)
With some PR oomph behind it, the band’s 1988 debut release could have been seen as the saviour of the fast dying Melodic Rock/ AOR era.

It was named for the Sci-fi novel by CS Lewis, the English author who wrote widely, in the fifties, on the subject of Christianity.

Some of the themes are woven into the album, giving the fabulous pop/ metal/ rock of ‘King’, ‘Goldilox’ and ‘Power Of Love’ additional heft.

Gretchen Goes To Nebraska (1989)
Consensus has it that the band peaked with this album. The end of the eighties was a time of socio-economic change, and as always in western culture, that was reflected in the music of the time.

The album’s complex lyrical themes were matched to a patchwork quilt of musical pieces, each creating sonic images to reflect the story being told in the narrative. The sense of yearning on ‘Summerland’ is almost palpable. And ‘Pleiadies’, “When I look up at the stars at night, what could I find beyond the light..”, is a jangling moment of shining songwriting genius.

Faith Hope Love (1990)
The band must have tired of comments about their “Christianity”. On the basis that it really doesn’t matter what drives your musical inspirations. Standout track, ‘It’s Love’, a Beatlish slice of psychedelic pop, led the album’s charge toward commerciality, leading into best selling album territory. The lyrics could be interpreted any way you want.

King’s X (1992)
The band’s last studio album with producer and guiding light, Sam Taylor, opened to mixed reviews (don’t they all).

A perfectly balanced guitar/bass/drums/voice chunk of Progressive Rock, ‘Prisoner’ was undoubtedly the album’s highlight. The song’s swirls of multitracked backing vocals bring a dissonance to the music that is quite adventurous, quite unexpected. Though perhaps now we should have expected the unexpected.

Commercial success continued to elude the band.

Dogman (1994)
The times they were a’changin, and so in the search for commercial success, the label put the band with Brendan O’Brien, who’d been producing Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam. The album has a harder, rawer, looser sound, layered with material best described as comparatively down to earth.

They seemed to get it just right with ‘Complain’ and ‘Black The Sky’, both intense and forceful but still with a welcome emphasis on melody.

Ear Candy (1995)
With one ear listening to the Beatles’ Revolver, Producer/writer/musician, Arnold Lanni left behind the AOR ambitions of his bands Sheriff and Frozen Ghost to craft user friendly, post grunge rock material with Our Lady Peace and others. This fed through to his work with Kings X on the band’s sixth album.

Ear Candy is psychedelic poprock with a heavy metal spine. Probably more listenable for casual listeners, but yet it seemed that the harder the band tried, the more it found fame and fortune eluded them.

Subsequently, the band left Atlantic to sign for Metal Blade Records. *****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 15 April 2024

ENMY The Ledge (FiXT)
KAROBELA Get Hard (indie)
KATH & THE KICKS Neptune (indie)
THE BEE TELLERS River Poem (Black Sand Records)
LAUREN FREEBIRD Like A Bomb (indie)

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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023
14:00-16:00 KATARINA PEJAK – Pearls On A String (Ruf Records)

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