King In Yellow - Spirit Shift (self-released)

Band names can reveal a lot about those behind them. Of course, some are chosen just because they sound good, but being a bookish sort of guy myself, I’m always pleased when I find literary references being used. And, if for no other reason than King In Yellow references a cult horror book in the Lovecraft/Machen oeuvre, a genre of which I’m a big fan, this band caught my eye…

…and then my ear.

Having first encountered them via previous single “Lightning Returning,” a song which sounded like every outsider band from the ’60s onwards coming together for one almighty jam session, “Spirit Shift” has closer sonic connections to the rawer end of the ’80s and ’90s’s college rock scene, and bands such as Dinosaur Jr. and especially The Pixies, which as reference points go is pretty good company to find yourself in.

The song is built of on/off pulses of raw energy; at one moment, abrasive crescendos are constructed out of industrial strength riffs; in another, more fragile, razor wire guitars coil and spiral in the spaces between. The backbeat drives things to their logical conclusion, and the vocals grow from angry bursts and barks to demented howls from the rooftops.

I suppose you’d call this alternative rock. Actually, it is the alternative to alternative rock, that genre having become all about standard musical moves, designer labels, and complicated hairstyles a long time ago.

Alt-alt rock it is then! Cool.

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