Review Summary: One of the more underwhelming King's X efforts
The first King’s X album released in the 2000s, Please Come Home… Mr. Bulbous is one of the band’s most experimental efforts. In addition to featuring what is easily their strangest title to date, the songwriting adjusts their priorities to focus on textures rather than hooks with more meandering nonlinear structures. If Tape Head showed a band that was perhaps playing it a little too safe, then Bulbous threatens to take them almost completely out of their comfort zone.
With this established, the musicianship sees some adjustments by means of a more subdued approach. The guitar work is more subtle than usual, often favoring effects, warped notes, and palm mutes on top of a more abstract rhythm section rather than the usual mix of straightforward chunky grooves and bright psychedelics. The deliveries from both singers are frequently restrained to the point of bordering on spoken word with the usual howls maintaining some distance. The vocal integration is back but it often has more to do with adding disorientation than true sing-along harmonies. There are enough of those King’s X quirks for this to not be confused with another band, but they’ve never sounded like this before.
Unfortunately, this method also frequently results in songs that are more… interesting than truly great. “Fish Bowl Man” provides a neat start with its Tabor-driven chorus and midway spoken segment that “Julie” follows in similar fashion. There are attempts at more conventional alt-rock songwriting with tracks like “She’s Gone Away” and “Marsh Mellow Field” while “When You’re Scared” is a nice slow jam, but the way they’re structured often results in them losing momentum before they’re properly realized. There’s an overall sense of building up to something but a lack of real tension results in more fizzle-outs than payoffs.
Please Come Home… Mr. Bulbous isn’t an awful album by any means, but it is one of the most underwhelming King’s X efforts. While it’s easy to see the compositions as having a rather unfinished quality, it feels more like the band was trying to incorporate the more experimental elements from contemporary groups like Tool into their sound without knowing how to properly pull them off. It’s the sort of album that demands to be heard as a whole, but there’s not much to endear it to anybody but the most diehard fans. Those seeking an outside the box approach to the King’s X formula might get something out of it.
