“Man Alive!” — A King and his Blues

In my early teenage years, just moving on from the neon-washed era of UK “New-Rave” music & aesthetic led by the Klaxons, Hadouken!, Late of the Pier, Skins and snapbacks, a younger me was deep in the throes of my “I only listen to real music with real instruments” phase.

It was around this time I discovered a young Archy Marshall, front man of London based lo-fi/rock outfit King Krule, performing under his previous moniker of Zoo Kid. A gaunt looking pale ghost of a boy, propping up a unreal brush of bright red hair, perfoming his song “Out Getting Ribs”. This was the start of a long obsession for me.

There’s a lot to be put off by Marshall’s music. The deeply surprising baritone vocal range he occupies, the almost tar-like progression of a lot of his songs predominately around the low hundreds and below for BPM, the discordant howls in some of his angrier pieces. It’s certainly not for everyone.

One thing that is commendable is Marshall’s commitment to what he does. His overindulgence in the concept of blue and things that represent it, from his song titles, lyrics, album covers, repeat references to the Ocean and it’s inhabitants to incorporating many Blues music influences and techniques into his more recent work. A more tall, cold, concrete flat blocks version of blues but blues nonetheless. This leads into how the group have been evolving their music by changing styles and themes between newer studio albums. The jump from the youthful scrappiness of “6 Feet Beneath The Room” to the aquatic jazz-fuzion like tracks on the sophomore album “The OOZ”

This trend of growing maturity and musical dialect continues King Krule’s most recent work, “Man Alive!”. The record is definitely a game of two halves with a dirge of four sinister punk tracks detailing hard breakups on Cellular, brainwashing and propaganda on Supermarché and Archy coming to in a park in South London after being jumped by local youths in Comet Shot. We are offered a brief reprieve from the rushed assault of Archy’s spiral into the putrid surroundings and events of his hometown with the track aptly named The Dream, which acts as a shimmering firmament from the rest of the album transitioning us into the latter part of the album.

From here on out the soundscape moves on to a slower, ethereal look at his life. There is a clear intent with this bridging of two seemingly disparate sounding parts of the album. While recording the album, Marshall’s bouts of general mid 20s loutery had to be put on hold as he found out his girlfriend was pregnant and he had to shape up. This is reflected to incredible effect here as the rest of “Man Alive!” continues on with a calmer, more contemplative look at his life. We are drudged through a thick broth of his emotional blues and his ever growing concerns, but we are also shown whispers of hope within lines like “ Why stop reading? when the page is ‘bout to turn”

Marshall is a very important figure in music to me and this album came at a very key time in my life, it lays bare the fact that things can change in heartbeat and entire areas of your life can dissolve into nothing, for better or worse. But that’s a part of everyone’s life and we are the better for addressing it.

The ache and thunder in the storms of your mind
Soak it in, for the rain will pass in time
Nothing wrong in sinking low