King of the Night Time World
Just because rock doesn't dominate the charts and hasn't hoiked up a new arena shagging, festival headlining group in years (Kasabian? Really? Is that the best Glasto can manage?) doesn't mean that there isn't oodles of rock music being made across the world. Quite the contrary actually, maybe there's too much, but amongst the throng of Sunday drivers are Kyng. An old-fashioned power trio Kyng take the accessibility of radio favourites like Foo Fighters and add the grit and swagger that Dave Grohl's mate Josh Homme brought back to the mainstream back at the turn of the century with QOTSA's Rated R but not as good as that. Sorry.
Hailing from rock's old decadent epicentre - Los Angeles - Kyng consist of Eddie Veliz who combines microphone and guitar duties, Pepe Clarke on drums including cowbell - duh, and bassist Tony Castane. Their second full-length, Burn the Serum, is an enjoyable hit for what ails ya, namely thick wedges of distorted guitars, a mammoth rhythm section and punchy songwriting. The production is suitably weighty but not exactly unique but perhaps that's down to the associations with the aforementioned groups of the recording team but on to what's good about the Californians.
Over eleven tracks Kyng take from the great and good, moulding a consistently appealing record, starting off with the sun blistered riffs of the title track that builds steam for over a minute before letting Veliz open his throat: "I will pick myself up and spit in your face". The song throws up riffs for drummer Clarke to rapidly tenderise like a pissed off version of the perennially breezy Torche. Kyng make their statement early.
First single Electric Halo is a bit goofy in its greedy cliche hoarding but it has a bit of strut to it sounding reminiscent of Slash's recent collaboration with Myles Kennedy which, really, is no bad thing. Elsewhere, Veliz's vocals take the centre stage on tracks like the reflective Sewn Shut and they wipe clean some perfectly serviceable but uninspiring dusty factory produced rockers at the record's midpoint; Faraway, Self Medicated Man and The Ode, before recovering to deliver the pummeling In the Land of Pigs. The acoustic suggestion of summer that is Paper Heart Rose which sounds to all intents and purposes like a Blind Melon homage (in 2014?!) brings a different tone to the closing tracks.
Kyng routinely alloy rhythmic heft to vocal catchiness to headbanging effect. At times it recalls a band on Roadrunner of some years ago - Open Hand - who had one earworm of a single (Pure Concentrated Evil), a solid album but never made it. It's hard to know what it would take for Kyng to emulate the success of the other bands I've discussed but certainly producing a record with the strengths of Burn the Serum is the best first step they could take and will no doubt be followed by a punishing tour schedule. Hopefully, Kyng can hold it together and hang in there for the long haul like the bands they so clearly love.