For almost a decade now, King Krule has traded in an immediately recognisable sound. In Archie Marshall’s world, jazz-influenced chords are bullied and bashed into post-punk shapes while he groans and grumbles through introspective, existential takes on his absurd surroundings. His new album, ‘Space Heavy’, carries a lot of this on from its predecessors, but mutates into something altogether more holistic.
The slacker drum and guitar entanglement of Flimsier is the sort of delicate backing that Marshall’s voice requires to display a sort of tuneful vulnerability that hasn’t quite been so crucial on prior releases.
Seaforth pushes this new agenda further, with sugary guitar and backing vocals that evaporate into perhaps the most delicate melody found anywhere across the King Krule catalogue.
“Up here, I'm freer than the birds, we soar above the broken Earth,” Marshall sings, demonstrating that in spite of all his known tendencies, he can find moments of joy. Though, of course, they’re tainted by the awareness that he’ll have to return to a fractured world.
The characteristic frustration that sits at the King Krule albums is subdued, though not for the sake of relaxation. There’s an emptiness across the project, with plentiful references to voids, vanishing, fugue states, and melting away.
Marshall’s vocal performances leap from utter apathy to over-enthused passion that on rare occasions leans into cartoonishness—see Pink Shell, a chaotic stramash of murky bass and guitars that swoop across the mix, panning from one side to the other and back again with little pattern.
If ‘Space Heavy’ isn’t King Krule’s greatest work so far, it’s close. It expertly displays the knowing chaos he so often wreaks, the soft sappiness he’s never lingered on quite so meaningfully, and the delightful crashing together of these two worlds.
King Krule Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed October 04 2023 - DUBLIN 3Olympia Theatre
Fri October 06 2023 - GLASGOW Barrowland
Sat October 07 2023 - MANCHESTER Manchester Academy
Mon October 09 2023 - LONDON Eventim Apollo
Tue October 10 2023 - LONDON Eventim Apollo
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