Kings X

"Black Flag" is a perfectly good example of why record companies should not pick the single off of the album. Because of their work you may not yet have heard the hook scientist Dr. Ty Tabor at work on "Lost In Germany". This excellent album is an important transitional step for anyone who was completely shocked by Dogman (as I was) after the hippy-trippy "Faith Hope Love" - you'll quickly understand once you're beaten down by the heavy opener "The World Around Me". Songs like "Chariot Song" and the slow, grinding, mega-heavy "Ooh Song" show exactly where the X was going to land, although maybe with a little more deference to their past. "Not Just For The Dead" and "The World Around Me" also show the not-so-subtle Christian leanings in their early lyrics. (The former is also the final appearance as of yet of the sitar on a KX album). But just in case those songs might scare you off a little take a listen to "The Big Picture". That song just makes my eyes watery thinking about listening to it - its the ultimate catharsis, its like being in the center of a hundred black baptist choirs, led by a wildly screaming Doug Pinnick, utterly sublimated by the sheer force and power of its emanating aura of goodness - and lord help me Ty's solo on this song is freakin' otherworldly. The second half of the disc has "Dream In My Life", a pretty ballad which has another mega-dose of Ty at the end, overdubbing something like 12 guitars playing at once. Otherwise "Silent Wind" and "Black Flag" bring down the quality a bit - just a bit. (4-1/2 stars) 


King's X

The World Around Me (LP版)

Prisoner (LP版)

The Big Picture (LP版)

Lost in Germany (LP版)

Chariot Song (LP版)

Ooh Song (LP版)

Not Just for the Dead (LP版)

What I Know About Love (LP版)

Black Flag (LP版)

Dream in My Life (LP版)

Silent Wind (LP版)

When I first played this King's X album to my friends, they had no clue what I was playing them, but I insisted this was the best band out there, forget about Guns & Roses, who were just making waves at this point. Pinnick could outsing most of the heavy metal hairpsray boys in a heartbeat. But it wasn't that. It was the sheer quality of their songs, and this unexplained energy that was happening in them. Whether this was the production of Sam Taylor, or a combination of Tabor/Gaskill/Pinnick and where they were at the time, Out of the Silent Planet is one of the most influential hard rock albums of its time. When Pearl Jam made waves in 1990 with 'Jeremy' from 10, I sat pretty amazed that this band was having huge success with what was, in sound and design, King's X with Eddie Vedder singing instead. Pearl Jam emerged 3 years after King's X's debut, and even though their formation started with Mother Love Bone, by 1990, Pearl Jam sounded like King's X. and had more success with it. That I never understood at all. 

An actual influx of bands came out around this time that took King's X's sound and had a great deal of success with it, but King' X lurked somewhere on the borders of commercial success.It was infuriating. Here was a band that influenced quite a number of musicians, that couldn't get the time of day, until 1990's ''It's Love'', and by that time many were sounding like King's X enough to make it sound as if King's X were joining their own bandwagon. The first album alone defines the King's X sound between 1987 - 1992. Definitive years for a definitive band. 

Another tag that gets associated with King's X is the Christian one. And I can honestly tell you I never ran to church after listening to their albums. The thought never crossed my mind. They had something far greater than just the excuse to quote the commandments or moralise. There was something mystical in their songs, and their live concerts were almost Revivalistic in energy. They had that much power. This changes after 1994's Dogman, but the first 4 albums are full of this certain type of energy that made me think King's X were one of the greatest bands I ever heard. 

This album needs remastering, as it is mixed a bit low compared to today's standards, and I hope the band's efforts to convince Atlantic to remaster their catalogue are fruitful. 

All 10 tracks are standouts. It's just the whole vibe the band puts on to these tracks that doesn't make just one person stand out over the other two. This is a band in all manner of the word. A must have album. It made me a fan of theirs for the past 17 years. 


Out Of The Silent Planet

Living Colour gets all the press, but King's X is actually a far more interesting blend of funk and hard rock. Imagine a power trio composed of Bootsy Collins, Leslie West and Ginger Baker, and you get some idea of the cartoonish but exuberant heavy metal funk served up by King's X on its fifth album, "Dogman." Producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots) has captured the trio's vigorously syncopated rhythms, metallic clash and hooky vocal harmonies with an old-fashioned live feel. The lyrics are comicbook nonsense; the chord changes are pedestrian, and nothing is as memorable as the band's 1990 hit, "It's Love," but "Dogman" reminds you how much raucous fun hard rock used to be before it calcified into a dour, plodding exercise in self-importance. Doug Pinnock's bass puts the boogie back into heavy metal, and guitarist Ty Tabor has finally learned to play rhythmically as well as squealingly.
A far more interesting singer than Corey Glover or James Hetfield, Pinnock proves you can still carry a tune when screaming like Robert Plant. When the three voices soar sweetly above the sonic assault on songs as catchy as "Fool You," "Don't Care" or "Complain," the effect is hard to resist. They close out the album with a manic live version of Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression." 



Dogman

An intelligent blend of melodic and heavy rock, Gretchen Goes to Nebraska is arguably King's X's finest album. It's more exciting than the followup Faith Hope Love, with the heavy opener "Out of the Silent Planet" (C.S. Lewis fans take note), and the hard rock "Fall On Me" and "Over My Head" (a single from the album). There are ballads as well, such as the beautiful "Summerland." The inclusion of the organ, the sitar, and the dulcimer in the arsenal of instruments adds a nice touch. Heavy metal fans may grow impatient with this one, but fans of melody-oriented progressive rock will definitely want to check it out.


Gretchen Goes To Nebraska

Rhino Hi-Five: King's X

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