Kc Rules Ok Review
Music journalist John Robinson whispers to me and thousands like me through his Q Magazine review of the new album by King Creosote that this brand of music is the result of an all too brief encounter between Folk and Glam. Being too young to remember the 1970s when this fabled encounter took place, one can only guess that Kenny Anderson has instilled within his new album all the things which create harmony amongst the musical genres. "You Are Could I?" begins with wailing and continues on a frenetic pace. More in-keeping with the mellow than the rock passion, this new album is the chill-out zone Muzak and a marvel in its own right. The music of King Creosote is wrapped in the gentile security more commonly found in a fresh pot of tea. The music is warm, inviting, but it is also static. It rarely ventures out from under the rug it has been using as a roof.
Anderson and his backing ensemble have discovered the beauty in the simple and sketched it for all to see. "In Boot Prints" one gets the sense that there is some room to manoeuvre as far as the remainder of the album is concerned. But above all the music is slow, methodical and prone to meandering down unseen paths and ending up in landscapes with more than a touch of the unfamiliar about them. Think Lennon and McCartney mixed with the mellow musical delights of the day. Think of jazz music making a play for stardom in a rock track that strokes the senses with the caress of a lover. Once you have conjured such images to your mind, you at last have a better idea of the sound of King Creosote. Variety amongst the playlist would have added a nice touch to proceedings, but you can’t fault a classic in the making simply because the music you love is repeated ad nausea till close of play. When something beautiful finds the strength to play on, it is a wonderful, glorious thing and one does wish that this album would last until the sleep in our eyes becomes too much for us and we drift off into the novelty of the land of Nod.
Can Folk and Glam ever really meet up in a bar without a Kaiser Chiefs enthusiast predicting a riot? King Creosote offers the folk element in abundance and there is the briefest of appearances of jazz. But this music is far removed from Goldfrapp riding around on the white horse of legend. There is little in the recording that one might call dance music and little that one would immediately identify as being of the school of rock. That said, it really is time we forgot about genres for a moment. Release the preconceptions and embrace the truth. All we really care about is discovering new music that we like. So, as one pint-sized magician once delighted in telling us, you will like King Creosote. Not a lot, but you will like them.