King King

King King got a lot of people on their feet last year; their classic heavy Blues sound is a welcome return to the form and for once a band made the music sound fresh and powerful as opposed to derivative and corny.

Having a lead man like Alan Nimmo helps and Wayne Proctor on drums is going to propel you like a Lamborghini but Bennett Holland plays keys like a master and Lindsay Coulson’s bass is earthing the band without excess weight – all very flowery but this is a band that tends to create excess in reviewers.

The music brings to mind some of the great Blues bands of the past – Free, Rory Gallagher even Hendrix – but they aren’t copying the bands of that great era and on numbers like ‘A Long History Of Love’ Alan Nimmo shows he has a huge and soulful voice to go with his guitar finery – for a moment I was hearing Mick Hucknall with testes!
Opener ‘More Than I Can Take’ has all the elements of their music – funk laden guitar, swelling Hammond organ and soulful vocals over rock solid rhythm section. ‘Taken What’s Mine’’ burns with intensity and features a superb solo from Alan Nimmo and then there is the monstrous and heartfelt ‘Heavy Load’ – one of the best Blues ballads I’ve heard in ages. Finally the album closes on the joyous ‘Let Love In’ – time to cue it all up again.

They mix up the tempos and the riffery but they always feel as though they are playing for the sheer fun of doing what they are doing so the next twist never seems planned or over thought out – a fine trick to play.

It is damn near impossible to say anything in the genre that hasn’t been said before and King King seem to concentrate on doing a great thing as well as it can be done. This is the ‘Difficult Second Album’ except they make it sound as easy as the first. For Blues lovers this is a feast.