Review Summary: This combination of punk, ska, reggae and politics is only hindered by a few filler tracks.
Save the World, Get the Girl
The King Blues:
Jonny Fox AKA Itch - vocals and ukulele
Jamie Jazz - vocals and guitar
Fruitbag - vocals and guitar
Johnny Rich - vocals and bass
Jim Parmley - percussion
Al Gunby – drums
It’s a cold March night in Oxford and an expectant crowd waits to see Chicago punks
Rise Against. As we move up the queue the news filters through that the supporting band
Anti-Flag have had to pull out, to be replaced by unknowns (to me at least)
The King Blues. The band comes on stage, greeted with a general feeling of ‘what the…?’, sporting acoustic guitars and a ukulele. As frontman Itch introduces himself I start to feel a pang of disappointment, expecting something similar to the other band on the bill,
Flobots. But those feelings soon start to dissolve as the music starts, the first song being “Let’s Hang the Landlord”. Two things immediately hit me: the catchy nature of the songs and the band’s clear punk attitude. No, it’s not punk in terms of sound, but the lyrics and approach of the band definitely are.
This seems like a good place to start: the band’s sound is definitely a fairly unique one in British music at the moment.
The King Blues take the folk elements of early
Against Me! and move it up a level, adding strings (on record, not live) and the aforementioned ukulele. It’s a combination that works well, especially in conjunction with Itch’s cheeky-chappy lyrics and style of delivery. As for the songs, the majority take the form of upbeat semi-acoustic anthems, with big sing-along choruses. There are also some more ska and reggae influenced tracks dotted around the album that give it some diversity. The mixture of these factors make
The King Blues far more acceptable to the mainstream than most other punk bands, highlighted by their appearances on Radio 1: the Live Lounge, the Big Weekend festival and a fair amount of daytime airplay. This complements the band’s political side well, giving them a much wider audience to share their views with.
So, the politics. While this album is subtler in delivery than their debut, it still contains some moments where the band makes their left-wing beliefs clear [why are there never any popular right-wing bands?]. The most obvious place is the song “The Streets Are Ours” (which was prefaced by a group eff-off to the BNP at the live show) and the second verse of the title track (eg ‘going to war, to prevent war, was the most stupid thing I ever heard’). But for the majority of the album the lyrics focus on more day-to-day and personal politics. This again adds to the band’s appeal; they never come across preachy or too forceful, yet the lyrics are easy to relate to.
But what about the quality of the songs on the album? It might have a lot to do with the power of their live performance, but for me the album seems to suffer from some instances of filler. Listening through, the album starts brilliantly with the gang vocal-ed chorus of “My Boulder”, followed by breakthrough single “I’ve Got Love”. The other standouts also happen to be the tracks I saw live, “Let’s Hang the Landlord”, “Save the World, Get the Girl” and “The Street Are Ours”. Many of the other songs fall into the category that is perhaps the best/worst for filler; they are fine when singing along in the moment, but you wouldn’t pick them out if you were skimming over the album. Frustratingly this suggests that the songs have the potential to be great but are just lacking that extra ‘something’. This can make the album feel a little patchy, although the great songs definitely outweigh the bad.
A special mention must go out to closer “What If Punk Never Happened”, a haunting track for anyone who has an interest in the history of punk or the genre in general. The references to legendary punk bands in the song (If only The Dead Kennedys had helped us put our government on trial… If we’d had Minor Threat then we could have done it sober…) might confuse more casual listeners, but for punk fans it’s a brilliant song.
The conclusion then;
The King Blues are obviously a band that thrive on live performances, demonstrations and activism, yet still manage to sound very good on record. This breakthrough album shows a real improvement over their debut and hints at an extremely bright future for the band. Maybe Britain needs another truly political band to fill the lofty shoes of The Clash…
