KILL THE CLIENT Wage Slave (Counter) cd 10.98
This is it, far as I'm concerned. The only record I think tops the mighty Pig Destroyer's masterpiece "Terrifyer" this year. This is absolute technical grind perfection, and one of the fastest and most intense 15 minutes of music ever committed to tape. No song on here breaks the hundred-second mark and yet you feel utterly beaten by disc's end -- the pace is relentless, the riffs ever-changing and the intensity exhausting as this Texas quartet blaze through 11 tracks of politically-charged grind. Imagine a cross between the manic controlled chaos of classic Brutal Truth and the technical off-time wizardry of Cryptopsy and then speed everything up tenfold and you're beginning to approach the full-on assault that this band delivers.
Individual playing is just stunning here -- the singer is positively monstrous, sounding like a dead ringer for Brutal Truth's Kevin Sharp and espousing refreshingly thoughtful and original political lyrics on such topics as the Russian mafia, economics, JFK conspiracy theories and even food dyes. The guitars are razor-sharp -- it makes sense that Jody of criminally-underrated tech-metal juggernauts Kalibas was in the band for a while -- both bands demand a proficiency from their players that belie the simplicity usually associated with genre. And then there's the drumming! You knew this was comingÉthis guy is fucking insane! Some of the fastest playing ever. On some songs, the blast beat is the SLOW part, I shit you not. For anyone even remotely interested in metal and grind, I simply can not recommend this record enough. Once you allow the wash of noise to bury you into submission, there's a good amount of complexity and memorable moments to wrap your head around. But really the music presented here far surpasses the constraints of the usual metal and grind conventions and summates to a sublime aural ferocity that pushes the very limits of human playing abilities. Yes, it's that good.
MPEG Stream: "Suka Voina"
MPEG Stream: "America...Sold!"

KILL THE VULTURES s/t (JIB) cd 14.98

KILLERS, THE Day & Age (Island) cd 15.98

KILLERS, THE Hot Fuss (Island) cd 15.98
Every label seems to want / need their own retro-styled band (Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, et al) these days, and Island Records' entry into the fray appears to be The Killers. They've nabbed all the catchy tropes from your favorite '80s bands, and created a wholly unoriginal but entirely catchy fusion of all of 'em. You get glimpses of the sounds of Duran Duran, The Cure, New Order and Pulp, but perhaps less poncy and sullen. Indeed what sets them apart from F.F. and I. (and what just might widen their potential audience immensely) is the degree to which they embrace the flashy and bombastic (think: The Darkness through a new wave filter). Scientifically formulated to trigger the nostalgia button in VH1 Classic watchin' thirty-somethings.
MPEG Stream: "On Top"
MPEG Stream: "Smile Like you Mean It"

KILLERS, THE Sam's Town (Island) cd 15.98
First off, doesn't the cover for the latest Killers album looks like one of those '90s dime-a-dozen major label bad rock releases that you end up seeing a slew of the next week in the used bin? Oh they're Anton Corbijn photos? Big whoop. We hope you're able to get past that unfortunateness, and give 'er a spin though. We did and can attest that the music fares much better than the packaging. This Las Vegas combo extend their shelf life past the fifteen minutes of fame afforded them by their single "Somebody Told Me". For their sophomore release, it sounds like The Killers are aggressively aiming to avoid being 'so two years ago' by shedding the '80s Duran Duran-isms and going heavier on the more timeless big rock pomp.
Slicker than ever, oozing with cocky confidence and so radio-ready. While a few Cure-ish moments do crop up, the band is modeling themselves more like anthemic grandeur of maybe U2, Yes and Queen. Funnily enough though, instead of that, we were thinking 'Gowan warbling with Interpol'. What? Too harsh? Nah. They're big boys now.
MPEG Stream: "When You Were Young"
MPEG Stream: "Uncle Jonny"

KILLERS, THE Sawdust (Island) cd 16.98
The Killers have some ol' odds and ends for you to shake your ass to! Sawdust is their catch-all of b-sides and rarities from the past four years. It totally captures their speedy sleek transformation from remarkably poncy Duran Duran-ites to sullen Joy Divisioners to big modern rock U2-ians in the span of just a few years. Beats us how'd they wrangled up the services of Lou Reed to sing on a tune, but they did for "Tranquilize". Includes four previously unreleased tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Tranquilize"
MPEG Stream: "Where The White Boys Dance"

KILLING JOKE Absolute Dissent (Spinefarm) cd 14.98
Killing Joke's self-titled tour de force in 2003 left us breathless, electrified, floored. The intent and precision of that musical attack was mighty, and the impact was pronounced on mind, body and spirit. Their last album Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell as well as this one are similar in their unwavering address of universal crises, but they have more of a live performance feel. Absolute Dissent is definitely more raw and punk a la early Killing Joke... not surprising though since it features the band's original line-up - Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, Paul Ferguson and Youth! A sludgey bassy roar rumbles through each song while Walker's trademark eviscerating guitar and Coleman's raging vocals slash their way to your ears. Pretty much anything this 32 year old band does can easily lay to waste most of the current hard rock, metal, punk, hardcore, you name it. The band's sound remains unmistakable and imposing, still vital and volatile all these years later, due largely to Coleman and Walker. Check out the propulsion of "Fresh Fever From The Sky" or the metallic firepower of "This World Hell". The second to last song "Here Comes The Singularity" hits the punk-pop nail on the head. Ultra catchy, but unlike the hooky yet inert anthems of current young bands of that genre, theirs actually present potent ideas with thought-provoking lyrics. That said, the album's seemingly most anomalous song, the slower, haunting "The Raven King" is also its highlight, calling to mind the atmospheric modern rock of Muse, Radiohead or newer Cave-In even. Beautiful and epic, a grand lament! All hail Killing Joke!
MPEG Stream: "The Raven King"
MPEG Stream: "Fresh Fever From The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Here Comes The Singularity"

KILLING JOKE Fire Dances (EG) cd 13.98

KILLING JOKE Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell (Cooking Vinyl) cd 15.98

KILLING JOKE Inside Extremities: Mixes, Rehearsals And Live (Candlelight USA) 2cd 14.98
We have mixed feelings about dvds and cds that come with bonus material that are primarily comprised of demos, alternate versions, etc... amounting to a mountain of stuff that was rejected for the album or movie proper in the first place. In one hand we have the "More is better, isn't it?" argument and in the other we have the "It wasn't intended to be heard by the public, was it?" debate. More often than not the extras and bonus material serve as nothing more than filler.
Enter Killing Joke's new double disc compilation titled Inside Extremities: Mixes, Rehearsals And Live -- a standalone release which in its entirety is a bit of a convulsive listen, but an electrifying document of the band circa 1990-91. Simply stated, with a band like Killing Joke virtually everything is invaluable, nothing is extraneous.
For fans and recording geeks (like us!), the first disc of rehearsal recordings is a fascinating peek behind the curtain of this mighty band's process in preparation for the recording of their 1990 album Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions. It features undeniably the band's finest, most potent lineup: Geordie Walker's massive guitars snake and roam, but are never ever aimless; Paul Raven's bass is a dirty molten boil; Martin Atkins' drums with a precise yet thunderous tribal pummel; and Jaz Coleman's bracing vocals slice through anything in its path. Even with the (we assume) one microphone room recordings on a lot of these tracks, Killing Joke's raw ideas and raw performances are riveting and filled with conviction.
Oh yes, and let's not forget that there's a second disc too which is a recording of a 1991 live concert in France. The band's performance is blistering, a phenomenal rock maelstrom. Actually we were surprised that it wasn't made the central focus of the release. The disc of rehearsal recordings could easily have been made the bonus accompaniment to the live cd (or to the forthcoming reissue of the album proper for that matter). A strange decision, but nevertheless, as a whole this makes for perfect preparation for the imminent reissue of the Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions.
MPEG Stream: "Money Is Not Our God (rehearsal)"
MPEG Stream: "Intravenous (live)"

KILLING JOKE Revelations (EG) cd 13.98

KILLING JOKE s/t (2003) (Zuma) cd 14.98
It would be a considerable understatement to say this new Killing Joke album is a sobering listening experience -- it's a fierce, visceral, and bleak call to battle. It rocks and rages with echoes of their 1981 debut (and first self-titled) album's feel and spirit. Yes, genuinely punk, and yes, genuinely metal... although those stifling labels can't and won't adhere to this band. Frankly, very few artists today can capture the pure seething energy that this, Killing Joke's second self-titled album, has harnessed.
Jaz Coleman tears out of your speakers like a man possessed. His deeply inspired vocal performance delivers some of his most inhuman gutteral growls, anguished howls and demonic hisses. Birlliant. His lyrics, brutally direct, are steeped in immense disgust and despair, with hard-hitting political critiques -- cross-hairs unquestionably zeroing in on Bush, September 11th and America -- interestingly, a lot of the heavy duty ones are omitted from the liner notes.
Geordie Walker's thunderstorm of guitars drill and grind, at once both tightly clenched and loosely slung -- pelting your ears with metallic shards and sinewed debris. Original bassists Youth and Paul Raven consume any remaining air with glowering lines that boil and stew. With each song, the unrelenting roar of Killing Joke closes in around you.
Drummer Dave Grohl -- apparently not busy enough with Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age -- does an excellent job immersing himself in the Killing Joke realm, closely resembling the pummeling precision and tribal thrash of Martin Atkins. Hopefully Grohl's presence (his name is stickered prominently on the front of the cd) will draw younger audiences to this venerable band.
Unlike other bands from the past who've regrouped recently for one last hurrah or to cash in on the latest retro trends, it's clear Killing Joke have resurfaced because they truly have something vital to convey (just as they did back in 1990 with Extremities... dirt... etc). They don't churn out albums year after year to fulfill record contract obligations -- they make music with a piercing focus when they feel the need and when it is needed.
Andy Gill's production is beautiful and huge (but not too 'modern rock'), making for a generally accessible and current sounding album (although some of the tracks are overly long) -- one that should have hard music fans clambering.
If you were ever into Killing Joke, check out this album! If you're new, this is a pretty good place to start.
MPEG Stream: "Dark Forces"
MPEG Stream: "Total Invasion"
MPEG Stream: "Implant"

KILLING JOKE s/t (first album, 1980) (EG) cd 13.98

KILLING JOKE The Unperverted Pantomime? (Pilot) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"The Unperverted Pantomime?" is a hodge-podge of some of the earliest Killing Joke recordings from the late '70s and early '80s. At that time, the band walked a similar post-punk path as Gang of Four and Public Image Limited, with discordant guitars crashing against a mutant dub rhythm section. Those who heard their early masterpiece "Turn To Red" on the "Wild Dub: Dread Meets Punk Rocker" compilation should know what to expect from these cuts, which include a bunch of early singles, a few radio session pieces, and some live recordings. None of these tracks have appeared on CD before. Unfortunately, neither the sound quality nor the performances of the live cuts are terribly good. Oh well. "The Unperverted Pantomine?" paints early Killing Joke as a fantastic studio band, and a less than ideal stage act. Overall, their new self-titled full length is a much more prime example of the incredibly blistering, volatile music of which this band is capable.
MPEG Stream: "Nervous System"
MPEG Stream: "Follow The Leader"

KILLING JOKE What's This For ...! (EG) cd 13.98

KILLS Midnight Boom (Domino) cd 14.98

KILLS, THE Fried My Little Brains (Rough Trade) cd ep 4.98
If you were snoozing a few months ago [uh, kinda like we were...] when The Kills' full length debut Keep On Your Mean Side came out, then goshdarnit, you've gotta check out this hot lil' ep. This duo have been drawing plenty of White Stripes comparisons... and they're certainly not unwarranted. The Kills' sound is plenty trashy bluesy garage rock, but dare we say this pair have something a bit more interesting and darkly intriguing going on? The proceedings are also infused with a dramatic flair, a dash of hillbilly stomp and a hefty dollop of slouch 'n' slur in the ol' Royal Trux or X tradition too. This ep's title track comes straight from the album but it also includes two new ones as well as a video for the forementioned song.
MPEG Stream: "Jewel Thief"

KILLS, THE Keep On Your Mean Side (Rough Trade) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hot damn! Wherever you are, The Kills are gonna find you, take you down and sex you up! Keep On Your Mean Side contains a dozen super smokin' gritty blues rock numbers! Yeah, you're no doubt thinking "more goddamn blues rock male/female duos?!" And yes, with White Stripes, Boss Hog et al packing the garage, it's nearing its saturation point. I know! I know! But do yourself a favor throw out that old toboggan and give those buckets of leftover paint the heave-ho 'cause you've gotta make some room for The Kills! We'll admit, we were sleeping on the job back in April when this album came out, but their most recent ep "Fried My Little Brains" sure snapped up to attention. A major part of the success of The Kills sound is the vocal chemistry between the myteriously named VV and Hotel (aka Alison Mosshart formerly of Discount and Jamie Hince). She sings, speaks and moans in her great, slightly broken voice - so throaty and soulful and not unlike P.J. Harvey, it just might leave you reeling - and his mildly British oft-muttered delivery is the perfect foil. A fantastic smoldering, down'n'dirty debut.
MPEG Stream: "Pull A U"
MPEG Stream: "Black Rooster"

KILLS, THE No Wow (Rough Trade) cd 11.98
For their second album, The Kills have taken a more urgent, aggressive stance with most notably Alison Mosshart sounding even more like Ms Polly Jean Harvey (circa Rid Of Me) than she did before and more than the lady herself does these days. And when Jamie Hince sings along they're a total deadringer for Boss Hog... that is if PJ gave Christina the boot. Ultra gritty, tense and sultry.
MPEG Stream: "Dead Road 7"
MPEG Stream: "The Good Ones"

KILLWHITNEYDEAD Never Good Enough For You (Tribunal) cd 12.98
When we first heard about this band we though they were called Kill WHITEY Dead which seemed like a pretty provocative name. And initially when we realized it was actually Killwhitneydead, we were a little bummed. Yet another stupid band name. But after listening to this record, a furious grind metal hate letter, presumably to a woman named Whitney, it all makes sense. The fury and bile of a man scorned, channelled into one of the meanest heaviest records we've heard in a while.
Imagine one of the best metal/grind bands you've ever heard, unbelievably complex, stop start arrangements, weird Iron Maiden-y guitar melodies, huge chugging riffery, with totally almost black metallish demonic vocals, and blasts of grinding melodic hard rock, leads all over the place, almost like some eighties metal band strapped into the electric chair and supercharged into a flesh eating, city destroying grind metal monster. Then imagine a second vocalist, who isn't a vocalist at all but a sampler spitting out clips from every violent / weird / cool movie from the last 20 years. But not just like samples over music, KWD take samples and literally use them like another vocalist, with the music edited and the songs written and arranged around the movie clips. It's been done in the past, but never so perfectly. Misanthropic, and pummelling and chillingly hateful. If I was Whitney I'd actually be pretty flattered that I was able to illicit the kind of passion it must have taken to birth this kind of musical monster. The clips are from Unfaithful, Buffalo 66, Harry Potter, Platoon, Wall Street, Black Rain, Natural Born Killers, Se7en, Lord Of The Rings, Memento, Aliens, Road To Perdition, The Longest Yard, House Of 1000 Corpses, Kiss The Girls, The Crow, Tenacious D, The Breakfast Club, The Usual Suspects and about a million more.
The insane thing is they actually list them all and got permission to use every single one of them. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "I Didn't Know "I Love You" Came With A Knife In The Back"
MPEG Stream: "Duct Tape And Death Threats"
MPEG Stream: "The Fine And Subtle Art Of Deception"
MPEG Stream: "Love Is Like A Mouthful Of Broken Glass"

KILOWATTHOURS Lessons in Time Management (Temporary Residence Ltd.) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Following up their 1998 full length (still available), this Lousiville-based indierock quartet grace us with two new songs. Melodic, emotive, and deliciously epic in the best ways... all the good adjectives apply. The recording is pretty lo-fi but the songs MORE than make up for it. Highly recommended.

KILOWATTHOURS Strain of Positive Thinking (Temporary Residence Ltd.) cd 13.98
Finally a full-length from this Louisville, KY combo! Majestic, soaring, hook-filled indie rock on the always trustworthy Temporary Residence Ltd. label. Very nice.
RealAudio clip: "That You All Played"
RealAudio clip: "Waterfront Park"

KILT Santa Muerte (Universal Consciousness / SickSickSick / Anarchymoon) lp 12.98
Super limited new lp from this free form blackened doom-drone-noise combo, two sidelong sprawls of twisted improvised blacknoise, each track awesomely and hilariously titled ("Satan Fe" and "Denvhorr"), and featuring at least one member of LA black metal horde Harassor, but this is far from black metal, there is most definitely a blackness, but the sound Kilt conjures up is more like droned our power electronics, lush and layered but corrosive and chaotic, churning low end burbles beneath grinding sheets of burnished white noise, streaks of feedback wrapped around heaving swells of super distorted thrum, blasts of super blown out buzz that sound almost like DHR beats recontextualized, clouds of cymbal shimmer, the sound woozy and warped, slipping from hushed drift to roiling speaker melting ferocity. There seem to be vocals too, chant like, but before they can form they seem to melt into the sounds around them. The sound is also fairly dynamic, with some of the low end peeling away, and leaving blasts of keening high end, or swirling fields of static, even a weird whistling melody at one point, or a wheezing chordal thrum, but even at its most ferocious, for a 'noise' record, it's surprisingly listenable, the textures and fractured melodies, the tone and timbre, not as harsh as it might seem at first blush, it's pretty tranced out and mesmeric. The second side starts out with a blast of fractured sound, jagged jump cuts and blasts of noise, before settling into a warm swirl of muted crunch and blurred rumble, and from there on out, the sound drifts from washed out crackly drift, to face melting howl, and back again, seeming to attain a sort of sonic equilibrium right in the middle, making this more mesmerizing than brutal, and we're far from being proponents of harsh noise, but this is the sort of sculpted noise, the sort of blown out power electronics and textured blacknoise dronemusic that we can't seem to get enough of.
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!! Each in a swank hand silk-screened cover.
MPEG Stream: "Satan Fe"

KIM JUNG MI Now (Lion) cd 14.98
All of you who loved Light In The Attic's career-spanning collection of music by Korean psych guitar maestro Shin Joong Hyun, that we recently made Record Of The Week, should be happy about this. It's an brand new official reissue, the first in a series, of Shin Joong Hyun related albums. As you perhaps recall, soothing psych-pop-folk singer Kim Jung Mi, backed by Shin Joong Hyun and his group The Men, appeared on that Beautiful Rivers And Mountains anthology with a song called "The Sun", which we said reminded us of Galaxie 500!
This 1973 full-length from Kim Jung Mi, as masterminded by Shin Joong Hyun, is also quite special. "The Sun" is just but one of the ten dreamily melodic tracks found here, including a four minute version of the song "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains" itself, a signature Shin Joong Hyun tune. Other titles include "Wind", "Blow Spring Breeze", "It's Raining", and "Lonely Heart", and although the lyrics are all in Korean, we get the idea that love and nature form much of the subject matter here (actually, the thick cd booklet provides English translations of the lyrics, along with EXTENSIVE, ultra-laudatory liner notes and lots of full-color photos of the sexy young chanteuse). In those liner notes, Shin Joong Hyun is quoted as having said: "There is no person who can sing Psychedelic music as well as Kim Joong Mi".
Kim Jung Mi's lovely voice will go straight to your heart, and the emotive music accompanying her is moodily lush, majestically melancholic... it's not really about hard-edged fuzz guitars, though they surface occasionally, as more often do propulsive psych "beat" grooves, but for the most part this album seems to hover on a higher, more heavenly pop plane of psychedelia than that suggests... The groovier stuff, though, reminds us of Serge Gainsbourg's Historie De Melody Nelson at times (on "Your Dream" especially). And it's no stretch that the liner notes call Kim Jung Mi the "Francoise Hardy of Korea". Recommended to any fan of the Forge Your Own Chains comp, in addition to those who already heard her on that Shin Joong Hyun collection. Gorgeous!
Comes nicely packaged in a miniature lp-style sleeve, with that aforementioned info/photo packed booklet. There's a vinyl version forthcoming as well, fyi.
MPEG Stream: "Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Your Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains"

KIM JUNG MI Now (Lion Productions) lp 21.00
Yay! Now reissued on nice thick vinyl too! Here's more or less what we said about this when the cd reish came out some weeks back...
All of you who loved Light In The Attic's career-spanning collection of music by Korean psych guitar maestro Shin Joong Hyun, that we recently made Record Of The Week, should be happy about this. It's an brand new official reissue, the first in a series, of Shin Joong Hyun related albums. As you perhaps recall, soothing psych-pop-folk singer Kim Jung Mi, backed by Shin Joong Hyun and his group The Men, appeared on that Beautiful Rivers And Mountains anthology with a song called "The Sun", which we said reminded us of Galaxie 500!
This 1973 full-length from Kim Jung Mi, as masterminded by Shin Joong Hyun, is also quite special. "The Sun" is just but one of the ten dreamily melodic tracks found here, including a four minute version of the song "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains" itself, a signature Shin Joong Hyun tune. Other titles include "Wind", "Blow Spring Breeze", "It's Raining", and "Lonely Heart", and although the lyrics are all in Korean, we get the idea that love and nature form much of the subject matter here. In the extensive liner notes, Shin Joong Hyun is quoted as having said: "There is no person who can sing Psychedelic music as well as Kim Joong Mi".
Kim Jung Mi's lovely voice will go straight to your heart, and the emotive music accompanying her is moodily lush, majestically melancholic... it's not really about hard-edged fuzz guitars, though they surface occasionally, as more often do propulsive psych "beat" grooves, but for the most part this album seems to hover on a higher, more heavenly pop plane of psychedelia than that suggests... The groovier stuff, though, reminds us of Serge Gainsbourg's Historie De Melody Nelson at times (on "Your Dream" especially). And it's no stretch that the liner notes call Kim Jung Mi the "Francoise Hardy of Korea". Recommended to any fan of the Forge Your Own Chains comp, in addition to those who already heard her on that Shin Joong Hyun collection. Gorgeous!
Comes nicely packaged, with obi, and large full-color 4-page insert with photos and those aforementioned liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Your Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains"

KING BISCUIT TIME No Style (Regal/Astralwerks) cd 10.98
King Biscuit Time is Beta Band head guy Steve Mason's alter ego. This domestic release compiles the "No Style" ep along with last year's "Sings Nelly Foggit's Blues In Me And The Pharaohs". Imagine Pink Floyd meets electronica with scratchin and muggin' gone even more crazy, then add some occasional jungle beats. Beta Band fans will love this. We think it's better than the slightly boring second Beta Band album.

KING BLOOD Eyewash Silver (Ignorant Gore) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long time readers of the aQ list no doubt remember Tetuzi Akiyama's Don't Forget To Boogie record, ostensibly, as the title suggests, a boogie rock record, but in reality, a twisted droned out hypnotic psychedelic minimal psych record, with the boogie elements stripped down to a single riff, then drenched in distortion and repeated over and over and over, creating super mesmerizing fields of layered repetition a la Reich or Riley, it quickly became a bigtime aQ favorite.
This debut lp from one man 'boogie' outfit King Blood, approaches boogie rock in a similarly oblique fashion, taking those boogie riffs and fucking them up big time. Not quite as minimal as Akiyama's opus, Eyewash Silver adds drums, and what sounds like multiple layers of guitars, not to mention WAY more distortion, a gloriously blown out chunk of experimental abstract minimal boogienoise weirdness.
Opener "Black Money" is probably the most traditionally song-y, a loping lumbering midtempo groove, a main riff locked tight and looped over a similarly tight barely there rhythm, but then all around it, guitars howl and grind, churn and crunch, loads of distortion and tangled melodies, swirling clouds of corrosive sound wrapped around that fantastically incessant groove, gradually growing more and more explosive, before the noise guitars nearly swallow up the boogie riff completely.
"End Of A Primitive" sounds like a Stooges sample dipped in distortion and left outside to crumble and decay before being brought back in and recorded onto some 20 year old 2" tape that had been stored in a wet basement. Another groovy riff, multiple guitar lines, the song gradually shifting, but so gradually, it's easy to get totally mesmerized. "Grimhaven" and "Grimhaven (A Return)" are all twang flecked dirge, like an echo drenched Earth, via the desert rock of Scenic, but again way more minimal, a single riff, a single part, looped and locked and totally hypnotic, while much of the melody is supplied by the bassline which is fluid and woozy, drifting beneath the song's core hypnodirge.
"Poison In Jest" is the killer here, super short at 2+ minutes, but an insanely super distorted chunk of garage dirge minimalism, Stooges riff and about ten tons of crumbling super blown out distortion.
The other songs follow a similar path, taking simple riffs and stretching them way out, adding layer after layer of thrum and howl and fuzz and buzz, occasionally letting the sounds slip into full of in-the-red freakout, but just as often, keeping them just this side of total chaos, the result, a gloriously hypnotic bit of riffy mesmer.
SUPER LIMITED, ONLY 100 COPIES, we got 12 or 13, and those are all we'll ever get. Way recommended for folks into droney, dirgey, hypnotic heaviness, which should most definitely be most of you!
MPEG Stream: "Black Money"
MPEG Stream: "Poison In Jest"
MPEG Stream: "Grimhaven (A Return)"

KING BLOOD Eyewash Silver (Permanent) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This super limited lp (100 copies) we listed last year, on the Ignorant Gore label, has now been repressed, also in quite limited quantities (300 copies), by Permanent Records, yay! Here's what we wrote about it before:
Long time readers of the aQ list no doubt remember Tetuzi Akiyama's Don't Forget To Boogie record, ostensibly, as the title suggests, a boogie rock record, but in reality, a twisted droned out hypnotic psychedelic minimal psych record, with the boogie elements stripped down to a single riff, then drenched in distortion and repeated over and over and over, creating super mesmerizing fields of layered repetition a la Reich or Riley, it quickly became a bigtime aQ favorite.
This debut lp from one man 'boogie' outfit King Blood, approaches boogie rock in a similarly oblique fashion, taking those boogie riffs and fucking them up big time. Not quite as minimal as Akiyama's opus, Eyewash Silver adds drums, and what sounds like multiple layers of guitars, not to mention WAY more distortion, a gloriously blown out chunk of experimental abstract minimal boogienoise weirdness.
Opener "Black Money" is probably the most traditionally song-y, a loping lumbering midtempo groove, a main riff locked tight and looped over a similarly tight barely there rhythm, but then all around it, guitars howl and grind, churn and crunch, loads of distortion and tangled melodies, swirling clouds of corrosive sound wrapped around that fantastically incessant groove, gradually growing more and more explosive, before the noise guitars nearly swallow up the boogie riff completely.
"End Of A Primitive" sounds like a Stooges sample dipped in distortion and left outside to crumble and decay before being brought back in and recorded onto some 20 year old 2" tape that had been stored in a wet basement. Another groovy riff, multiple guitar lines, the song gradually shifting, but so gradually, it's easy to get totally mesmerized. "Grimhaven" and "Grimhaven (A Return)" are all twang flecked dirge, like an echo drenched Earth, via the desert rock of Scenic, but again way more minimal, a single riff, a single part, looped and locked and totally hypnotic, while much of the melody is supplied by the bassline which is fluid and woozy, drifting beneath the song's core hypnodirge.
"Poison In Jest" is the killer here, super short at 2+ minutes, but an insanely super distorted chunk of garage dirge minimalism, Stooges riff and about ten tons of crumbling super blown out distortion.
The other songs follow a similar path, taking simple riffs and stretching them way out, adding layer after layer of thrum and howl and fuzz and buzz, occasionally letting the sounds slip into full of in-the-red freakout, but just as often, keeping them just this side of total chaos, the result, a gloriously hypnotic bit of riffy mesmer.
SUPER LIMITED, ONLY 300 COPIES, hand numbered, with "glorified" artwork compared to the original pressing. Way recommended for folks into droney, dirgey, hypnotic heaviness, which should most definitely be most of you!
MPEG Stream: "Black Money"
MPEG Stream: "Poison In Jest"
MPEG Stream: "Grimhaven (A Return)"

KING BLOOD Vengeance, Man (Ritchie) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eyewash Silver, the debut from one man knuckle dragging minimal psych avant boogie one man band King Blood, was a massive hit around here, every track seemed to be a Reich / Riley style deconstruction of psychedelic boogie, a thick corrosive riff, dipped in distortion, then repeated trancelike over and over, inducing a seriously psychedelic state in the listener, we haven't been that blown away by a mysterious debut in ages. So we were super psyched for this follow up, and were expecting another does of blown out caveman riffing, but instead, something strange seems to have happened, at least judging from the opening title track, sure the sound is still insanely in-the-red, the low notes crumbling and seeming to tumble from the speaker in corrosive gouts, but the vibe is much more laid back, the sound much more melodic, a serious fuzzy psychedelic groove, multiple melodies, intertwined guitar lines, there's still really just one part, repeated over and over, but it's downright catchy, and near the last minute or so the low end drops out, leaving just the drums and some soaring guitars for a strange sort of majestic psych coda.
So we were expecting the second track to drag us back into the murk, and while it too is all thick and slithery, the low end a seriously dense buzz, it too is pretty goddamn melodic, the low end locking into a groove, while other guitar lines soar and wail over the top, and like the opener, it's blissed out and hypnotic, and yet weirdly melodic and catchy. "Wheels Across The Night" does touch on some of the Stooges vibe that was present on much of Eyewash Silver, all swaggery super distorted stomp, but then "I'll Take What's Mine" strips things way down, practically acoustic, lilting and balladic, sounding a bit like some lost Les Rallizes Denudes recording (which we're sure was the intention), buried crooned vocals, shards of feedback, spidery melancholic melodies, it's a cool side of King Blood we hadn't seen before, but we definitely want more. "Here Comes A Candle" is a brief bit of super melodic boogie, which leads into the closer, the 8+ minute "Silent Dust", which is the most abstract of the bunch, and ends up sounding like Six Organs Of Admittance or Ghost, albeit run through a daisy chain of malfunctioning distortion pedals and blasted out of a cabinet equipped with shredded speakers, and as good as that sounds, the actual jam is even better, blown out, dusky and deserty, lazy and druggy and dreamy, and yet still plenty distorted and heavy and seriously psychedelic.
Beautifully packaged in a heavy screen printed cardstock jacket, already sold out at the label, so these may be the last copies we're able to get!
MPEG Stream: "Vengeance, Man"
MPEG Stream: "I'll Take What's Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Silent Dust"

KING BLOOD Vengeance, Man (Ritchie) lp 17.98
REPRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK!!!
Eyewash Silver, the debut from one man knuckle dragging minimal psych avant boogie one man band King Blood, was a massive hit around here, every track seemed to be a Reich / Riley style deconstruction of psychedelic boogie, a thick corrosive riff, dipped in distortion, then repeated trancelike over and over, inducing a seriously psychedelic state in the listener, we haven't been that blown away by a mysterious debut in ages. So we were super psyched for this follow up, and were expecting another does of blown out caveman riffing, but instead, something strange seems to have happened, at least judging from the opening title track, sure the sound is still insanely in-the-red, the low notes crumbling and seeming to tumble from the speaker in corrosive gouts, but the vibe is much more laid back, the sound much more melodic, a serious fuzzy psychedelic groove, multiple melodies, intertwined guitar lines, there's still really just one part, repeated over and over, but it's downright catchy, and near the last minute or so the low end drops out, leaving just the drums and some soaring guitars for a strange sort of majestic psych coda.
So we were expecting the second track to drag us back into the murk, and while it too is all thick and slithery, the low end a seriously dense buzz, it too is pretty goddamn melodic, the low end locking into a groove, while other guitar lines soar and wail over the top, and like the opener, it's blissed out and hypnotic, and yet weirdly melodic and catchy. "Wheels Across The Night" does touch on some of the Stooges vibe that was present on much of Eyewash Silver, all swaggery super distorted stomp, but then "I'll Take What's Mine" strips things way down, practically acoustic, lilting and balladic, sounding a bit like some lost Les Rallizes Denudes recording (which we're sure was the intention), buried crooned vocals, shards of feedback, spidery melancholic melodies, it's a cool side of King Blood we hadn't seen before, but we definitely want more. "Here Comes A Candle" is a brief bit of super melodic boogie, which leads into the closer, the 8+ minute "Silent Dust", which is the most abstract of the bunch, and ends up sounding like Six Organs Of Admittance or Ghost, albeit run through a daisy chain of malfunctioning distortion pedals and blasted out of a cabinet equipped with shredded speakers, and as good as that sounds, the actual jam is even better, blown out, dusky and deserty, lazy and druggy and dreamy, and yet still plenty distorted and heavy and seriously psychedelic.
Beautifully packaged in a heavy screen printed cardstock jacket.
MPEG Stream: "Vengeance, Man"
MPEG Stream: "I'll Take What's Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Silent Dust"

KING BROTHERS (Bulb) cd 10.98
The quality-trash rock merchants at Bulb bring to us this Japanese ultra-distorted noisy garage fuzz trio, a band clearly trying to give countrymen Guitar Wolf a run for their money.

KING BROTHERS In the Red (In the Red) cd 13.98
Album number two from this hot Japanese trio! After an amazing overdriven garage monster debut on Bulb and years of touring for these Osaka mod rockers, "In the Red" is a long awaited and highly anticipated follow up. Released on Toshiba EMI in their homeland, this new LP is jam packed with twelve scorching tracks of furious speaker blowing blues stomp action mastered at maximum volume!
RealAudio clip: "Super X"
RealAudio clip: "***"

KING COBRA, THE s/t (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 10.98
No, not the '80s hair metal band led by drummer Carmine Appice!! This King Cobra is a brand new band formed by drummer Rachel Carns of The Need (also ex-Kicking Giant), bassist Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan, Retsin, The Sonora Pine, and solo y'know), and a third party named Kwo on guitar. There is, however, a distinct metal element to be found here as you'd expect from The Need connection. I guarantee you that people will be headbanging and making the devil sign at their shows! This trio's sound is fat and heavy yet sinewy, additionally incorporating bombastic electric organ, some wild horns, and even wilder vocals. You'll hear how they distort metal, new wave, prog, and punk into their own supercharged sonic brew as they grind, gallop and gear-shift their way through six tracks in eighteen minutes. Short this may be but The King Cobra pack a lot of music into that span of time! We're definitely looking forward to a future full-length!
MPEG Stream: "March On Pompeii"
MPEG Stream: "Fake Ex Swan Diver"

KING COBRA, THE s/t (Troubleman Unlimited) lp 10.98
No, not the '80s hair metal band led by drummer Carmine Appice!! This King Cobra is a brand new band formed by drummer Rachel Carns of The Need (also ex-Kicking Giant), bassist Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan, Retsin, The Sonora Pine, and solo y'know), and a third party named Kwo on guitar. There is, however, a distinct metal element to be found here as you'd expect from The Need connection. I guarantee you that people will be headbanging and making the devil sign at their shows! This trio's sound is fat and heavy yet sinewy, additionally incorporating bombastic electric organ, some wild horns, and even wilder vocals. You'll hear how they distort metal, new wave, prog, and punk into their own supercharged sonic brew as they grind, gallop and gear-shift their way through six tracks in eighteen minutes. Short this may be but The King Cobra pack a lot of music into that span of time! We're definitely looking forward to a future full-length!
MPEG Stream: "March On Pompeii"
MPEG Stream: "Fake Ex Swan Diver"

KING CRIMSON Earthbound (BMG) cd 15.98

KING CRIMSON Epitaph (Discipline) 2cd 23.00
Live 1969 Crimson, the original line-up. You get a couple of versions of "20th Century Schizoid Man" but also tons of great improvisation. Packaged in a keen cardboard box, with a thick full-color booklet of reminisces.

KING CRIMSON Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With (Sanctuary) cd ep 11.98
We didn't expect that this new Crimson disc, some sort of pre-album ep of new songs, mixes, and acoustic versions, would be all that great. But you can always hope. Well, so much for hope. This includes "Larks Tongues In Aspic Part VI" but a better title would be "Larks Tongues In Aspic Part Suck". The King Crimson line-up listed here consists of Fripp, Belew, somebody, and somebody else. No Bruford or Levin (we mention, for those that care). But it seems that this must also include uncredited contributions from Stone Temple Pilots, Blues Traveler, and some vocoder vocals from a bunch of Battlestar Galactica Cylons. Yuch. Must have been touring with Tool that got Fripp & Co. thinking they needed more of a "modern rock" sound. It's not all bad, but it's a mess. There are a few moments of Frippertronics on here, but in this context they sound weak and New Agey... How 'bout they start working on "Happy With Never Making An Album Again 'Cause We've Totally Lost The Plot"? Just a suggestion. Sorry to be so harsh, but even the biggest Crim/Fripp fans we know were disappointed.
RealAudio clip: "Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With"

KING CRIMSON In The Court Of The Crimson King (EG) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Debut from Robert Fripp & Company. Mini-LP sleeve version (with that great, disturbing cover painting).

KING CRIMSON Islands (Discipline Global Mobile) cd 14.98

KING CRIMSON Ladies Of The Road (Discipline) 2cd 19.98
"The King Crimson Collectors Club" (god, what's gotten into them?) presents: "Ladies of the Road", a double cd of live Crimson from 1971-72. While oddly enough it doesn't actually have their song "Ladies of the Road" on it, it's a powerful document of Crimson's unique insane math-rock jazz-prog from an underrated, underdocumented era and lineup of Crimson (circa their album "Islands" and the recently reissued live disc "Earthbound") that was definitely being influenced by American R&B and jazz, moreso than the classical elements prominent in the original Crim of 69-70.
Did we get the word jazz in there? This is VERY jazz, with lots of Mel Collins' saxophone all over the place, along with of course Robert Fripp's unmistakable guitar genius. The songs and improvs presented here are in part and together gorgeous, heavy, pretty, crazed, gentle, funky (!), psychedelic, smooth, noisy, intense, and (of course) schizophrenic. Speaking of which, the second disc in this set, entitled "Schizoid Men", is a mammoth edited-together collection of NOTHING BUT THE GUITAR AND SAX SOLOS from a whole bunch of live performances of "21st Century Schizoid Man"! Yes, fifty-some energetic minutes worth. As Fripp says in the liner notes: "King Crimson has often been accused of a capital offence in the annals of Prog Crime: the endless guitar solo. Who cares that prosecutors had not listened to the band? Schizoid Men is one approach to offering a plea of guilty, on the basis of manipulated evidence long after the events. Extended soloing by Mel Collins is not, in my book, any kind of crime at all. Rather, an instruction in performance by a young master." Not to mention, humble man he is, his own extended soloing... Pretty cool, actually, really way out there. We were playing it in the store, and one of our more avant-garde and drunken customers, who claims not to like Crimson, even felt compelled to buy it.
So, after last list's panning of the new 2002 Crimson effort, here's a nice (sad too, I suppose) reminder of how great (and different) they once were. Maybe Fripp ought to take a close listen... By the way, this has really good live sound, not like a shitty bootleg!
RealAudio clip: "Groon"
RealAudio clip: "The Letters "
RealAudio clip: "Schizoid Men 5"

KING CRIMSON Lark's Tongues In Aspic (EG) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Mini-LP sleeve version.

KING CRIMSON Lizard (Discipline) cd 15.98

KING CRIMSON Nightwatch (DGM) 2cd 19.98
Fripp & crew live in concert, 1973. Fine sound (a portion of this was overdubbed for use on Starless And Bible Black), great music, plenty of beyond-prog improvisation.

KING CRIMSON Red (EG) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Mini-LP sleeve packaged version of this essential Crim album. A must-have, certainly, for fans of Don Cab!!

KING CRIMSON Red (DGM) cd 14.98
For fans of Don Cab!!!!!! This is where it all began suckas!

KING DUDE Burning Daylight (Dais) cd 14.98
It's too bad sometimes that we don't get to really sit down with some records until right before it's time to review them for the list, cuz often, records that we were only able to hear once or twice in the shop, or briefly on the computer, reveal themselves as something super special, and in the case of this latest full length from the oddly and somewhat inappropriately monikered King Dude, a potential Record Of The Week! All the promise of past releases seems to be full realized here, in what is no longer really neo-folk, or post industrial, but is instead, some sort of alternate reality classic country music. Imagine some dark shadow version Johnny Cash, and that's King Dude, aka T.J Cowgill, a modern man in black, whose sound is equal parts classic country songsmithery, warped echo drenched rockabilly, and brooding sinister balladry. All reverbed twang, murky percussion, and Cowgill's impossibly deep croon. It's like some fantastically demonic Johnny Cash / Woven Hand / Der Blutharsch hybrid, the sound sinister, and haunting, emotionally heavy, dark and shadow, death ballads from beyond.
The opener "Holy Land" is a roiling murky twang flecked dirge, a churning rhythmic backdrop, wreathed in washed out chords, the vocals a woozy croon, everything so doused in delay and echo, that the sounds blur into one single hazy sprawl of black country shimmer. But King Dude ain't no one trick pony, "Barbara Ann" ditches pretty much all the effects, leaving just acoustic guitar and vocals, Cowgills deep voice, made even more so (almost cartoonishly), but the effect is simply harrowing and haunting, it's on tracks like these, that the classic country comparisons are so apt, albeit with a slight twist making the sound just that little bit darker.
"Im Cold" returns to the cavernous sonic underworld of the opener, with jagged twangy strumming, swaggery snarled vox, lots of percussion, again everything hazy and indistinct, the verses super dynamic, but the chorus is a druggy, drowsy sonic blur, the sound reminding us of Dirty Beaches, but a much more sinister, demonic version of them. It's a modern post industrial trip to the fabled crossroads, where the power of the blues was given to Cowgill, but stained black, with the blood all who came before. The songs here are so dark, and ominously powerful, whether it's the bluesy country dirge of "Jesus In The Courtyard" rife with muted industrial percussion, those deep growled vox, and a crooned chorus, or the soft focus twang-gaze dream drift of "My Mother Was The Moon", with fantastic female vox, over simple muted strum, everything gauzy and washed out and otherworldly, the woozy ooooooh vocal refrain utterly captivating and spellbinding, maybe the best track here, the post industrial black country analog to the Afghan Whigs' "My Curse".
The rest of the record unfurls darkly and dreamily, the weird processed vocals on "Lorraine" leading into the classic fifties style country pop of "You Can Break My Heart", all dark torch song balladry, but sprinkled with soft swirls of celestial synth, the sounds weaving from speaker to speaker, wrapped in some extra grit and noise, and laced with ghostly female backup vocals, finally finishing with "Lord I'm Coming Home", which like the title suggests, the intro a dark, shadowy spiritual, all echo drenched chorale voices, and muted smears of soft focus feedback, before the song proper kicks in, that deep dramatic croon, over urgently strummed steel string guitar, all beneath a haze of chiming ethereal melodies, the vocals blurring into the background, taking on the form of some alternate reality spiritual, drifting dreamily on a bed of warm whirring organ, before finally fading out for good.
So fantastic, and another one of those records that makes it hard to review anything else, since this is all we want to listen to. Consider this a could have / should have / would have been Record Of The Week, and thus consider it highly and extremely recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Holy Land"
MPEG Stream: "Barbara Anne"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus In The Courtyard"
MPEG Stream: "My Mother Was The Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Lord, I'm Coming Home"

KING DUDE Love (Dais) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As we mentioned in our review of the last King Dude record, you really couldn't come up with a less appropriate name for a group like this, a group whose sound is some sort of brooding, moody, post industrial neofolk, all haunting and apocalyptic, deep crooned vox and lush layered strum, but like all weird band names, they eventually become so familiar and so inexorably linked to the sounds, it's hard to separate the two. This latest King Dude record finds T.J. Cowgill, the one man behind this one man band, adding some classic country to his sound, a sound which already touched on classic seventies psychedelic folk, as well as the martial industrial of groups like Death In June, Blood Axis, Sol Invictus and the rest, but this hint of classic country definitely transforms the sound into something else entirely.
Opener "Don't Want Me Still" sounds like a classic country ballad, mixed with a sixties girl group production, and some Mazzy Star like shoegaze, everything slathered in effects, thick whorls of delay and echo, all hazy and druggy and so divinely dreamy, weird too, when the vox pitch down and become a strange sort of gurgling rumble. Elsewhere KD touches on the swampy apocalyptic folk of groups Like Woven Hand and Sixteen Horsepower, but with creepy deep vocals that sound more like Pete Steele, and gives the sound a distinctly gloomy gothic vibe.
A couple of the tracks here are spare and skeletal and sound distinctly slowcore, reminding us a bit of Low, with woozy guitars, and sweetly angelic female back up vox, while others seem to touch on the sort of fractured lo-fi rockabilly of Dirty Beaches, that crumbling low fidelity crooned creep, with still others sounding like classic torch songs reimagined as dark strummed dronefolk. The sound drifting drowsily from urgent and strident, to hushed and ominously menacing, to dreamy and droney and darkly warped and woozy. So great.
Some of the SWEETEST packaging we've seen, stark black and white jackets, diecut with the shapes of sigils cut out, revealing the strange full color imagery beneath. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.

KING DUDE You Can Break My Heart (Dais) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
King Dude is a tough one to figure out. First there's the name which is evocative of pretty much everything KD is not, and the sound, a constant shifting mix of post industrial neo-folk, dark gothic torch songs, old time balladry, sinister apocalyptic country, and stripped down sixties girl group songsmithery, and on this latest single, a teaser for an upcoming full length, the sound shifts once again, this time, it's all acoustic guitar and vocals, wreathed in a bit of glimmery FX, the voice a deep ravaged croon, that slips occasionally into something more snarly, everything echo drenched, the 7" label bears the legend 'dungeon doo wop' which is not a bad description at all. The A side finishes off with a gorgeous lush harmony vocal-ed coda that leads directly into the even more stripped down non-album B side, a slithery, skeletal blues, nothing but voice and guitar, the voice this time an impossibly deep almost gurgly rumble, which gives the whole sound a darkly demonic vibe.
Comes lavishly packaged in a super thick jacket, and with a big fold out black and white poster. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

KING GOBLIN Goblin King (Smell Rot Music) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just got a few more of these back in stock!!
You'd think it would be easy to write reviews of records you love, but it's not, not always anyway. This band, though, makes the task easier, 'cause maybe we can just say a few key words: JAPAN. DOOM. PSYCH. CRAZY. Uh... is that doing the trick? Tokyo trio King Goblin, who describe themselves as a "progressive space psychedelic death rock band", definitely have that "anything goes", totally WTF?! Japanese thing going for 'em, mixing up prog and punk and funk and metal and noise whatever else they want, you know what we mean if you have albums by bands like Boredoms, Melt Banana, Children Coup D'Etat, Space Streakings, Omoide Hatoba, Green Milk From The Planet Orange, and others of that ilk in your collection. Specifically, though, the Japanese bands that King Goblin most especially make us think of are CSSO, Solar Anus, and Sigh (circa Imaginary Sonicscape). Somehow melding gonzo grind and druggy doom, plodding heaviness and catchy grooves, the nine strange songs here bouncing from spaced out acid rock to lumbering funk, with rubbery bass, squiggly guitar, gruff guttural vocals, and, as it says here, "hand craps" (sorry if it's not PC to chuckle over that particular credit in the cd booklet!).
Imagine if retro-disco-doomsters Cathedral got even weirder than they already are now, turned Japanese, and went no wave... that might approximate the dizzying extreme entertainment offered up by King Goblin. Also, how can songs with titles like "Boiled Again (Born To Ride)" and "Motordead" not be entertaining?
This disc, their debut, actually dates from 2007, but we only discovered 'em recently, and got some copies directly from Japan as quick as we could. They're working on a new album, to be entitled Cryptozoology, but unfortunately the guitarist of King Goblin is currently suffering from some unspecified, serious illness, so that's delaying things. Hopefully he gets better soon!! However, a couple of the King Goblin guys are also in wicked sick grindcore band called AKBK, who have a brand new album out that smokes, see the review elsewhere on our site.
MPEG Stream: "Megalomaniacs"
MPEG Stream: "From Dusk 'Til You Die"
MPEG Stream: "Datura"

KING KHAN AND BBQ What's For Dinner (In The Red) cd 13.98
If you're cravin' retro garage rawk stylings that're a little campy, cheeky, kitschy, trashy... all of the above?! Well, the In The Red label has long been a headquarters for top notch wildly good rockin' sounds, and they just keep 'em comin' with this new album from King Khan And BBQ! The oddly named Canadian band might be the ticket! In our opinion, the second half of the album is where the band really kicks the party up a boozy notch. Includes a cover of Circle Jerks' "Operation". Super fun!
MPEG Stream: "What's For Dinner?"
MPEG Stream: "Operation"