Flint, Michigan is a town possibly best known to the wider world thanks to the spotlight shone upon it by Michael Moore in various documentary films including ‘Bowling for Columbine’, Roger and me’ and ‘Farenheit 9/11’. The picture painted by Moore is one supported by various crime statistics that indicate Flint to be a violent place indeed, whilst the parlous state of the city’s finances fare little better. It is the case, however, that dark circumstances can inspire significant artistic endeavour and it is from this dark, uncompromising world that King 810 emerged, puling and screaming, with their beautifully brutal debut album, ‘Memoirs of a murderer’. Hard-edged and yet varied, the album did not fit easily into any one single genre specification, whilst the lyrics marked the band out as intelligent, if troubled, observers of the human condition. With praise heaped upon it from fans, critics and fellow artists (not least Machine Head’s Robb Flynn), it should be no surprise that follow-up effort, ‘La Petite Mort or a conversation with God’, arrives with some degree of anticipation attached to it. Featuring thirteen tracks, the album sees the band once more experimenting with a variety of tones and elements, all of which coalesce to create something that is genuinely disturbing and frighteningly heavy.
‘Heavy lies the crown’, the opening track, is a case in point. A blistering confessional that is best described as William Burroughs fronting ‘Iowa’-era Slipknot, it segues into the recently-released ‘Alpha and Omega’, a devastatingly heavy piece delivered with slow, menacing precision. Harrowing and methodical, elements of industrial and nu-metal drift through the mix, but really this is King 810 delivering metal in the only way they know how and the result is staggering. Such cataclysmic weight is difficult to maintain, and ‘give my people back’, whilst still broodingly intense, adds just enough melody to provide some relief from the unremitting bleakness of the opening gambit. That’s not to say it’s not an intense track, however, and the chorus is a fantastic juxtaposition of memorable rhythmic pulse and skull-crushing metal that is pretty much peerless. Paring back the guitars for the verses, ‘Vendettas’ throws a great deal more light onto David Gunn’s incisive lyrics and gritty vocal delivery. It works because there’s considerable depth to David’s sanguine poetry as the follow-up, ‘Black Swan’, even more aptly demonstrates. The song-writing here, which dispenses with the ferocious metal found elsewhere in favour of a soundtrack that is closer to Clint Mansell than Corey Taylor, is phenomenal and a perfect example of an adventurous band tearing up the rule book as they go. With rich strings, epic drumming courtesy of Andrew Workman, and a climax that manages to be both beautiful and thrillingly brutal all at once, ‘Black swan’ is a genuine mini-masterpiece that shows the depth of which King 810 are capable. ‘The trauma model’ continues in this vein of rich innovation, the band heading in a direction that can best be described as dark ambient before a stuttering industrial riff threatens to shred the mood.
A lengthy, epic piece of music that explores the darker side of human nature, ‘La Petite Mort’ is the monologue of an individual bought close to breaking point by the savage inhumanity of man whilst simultaneously revelling in the cursed damnation of his circumstances. The music, a subtle, carefully constructed soundtrack to David’s personal apocalypse, is astonishing, referencing the dark ambient of Ulver, but the monster at the heart of the track is David Gunn whose performance is both convincing and convinced, causing shivers to break out as he draws the listener ever deeper into his world. The band continue to innovate with ‘I ain’t going back again’, a track that comes across like an eloquent cross between Eminem and Nick Cave, the music pulsing and surging with darkness and a twisted nostalgia that is both bitterly evocative and heart rending. Perhaps the album’s most exquisite piece of music, ‘War time x Trick Trick’ sounds like Holst’s the planets reconstructed by Ministry and filtered through the earthen gravity of Neurosis. Not just a piece of music, this is art, alive with the dark passions of a group of individuals forged in the fire of violence and depredation. In contrast, the introduction to ‘life’s not enough’ is achingly gorgeous, recalling nothing so much as the dark, claustrophobic beauty of Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’. With the album flowing in increasingly unexpected directions the sleazy jazz of ‘me and Maxine’ heads into the twisted jazz of Barry Adamson, David Gunn narrating an x rated tale that is straight out of fifties’ noir. Such diversity shouldn’t work, but King 810, like Ulver and Massive Attack before them, are remarkably adept at stitching the songs together, capturing a mood that flows across the album with remarkable fluidity seemingly in spite of the eclectic nature of the music on offer. Introspective and slow burning, ‘Wolves run together’ lives in a hallucinatory haze that slowly slips away to reveal the brutal undercurrent that was buried deep all along as ‘A conversation with god’ degenerates into a screaming hell of tortured screams, blood-flecked saliva and grinding guitars. A grand, sweepingly symphonic finale, ‘A conversation…’ ends as the album begins, with the menacing, unrepentant narrator back heading back home.
When offered a chance to review this album I was warned that it is too much to take in in one sitting. Whilst I normally listen to albums several times before reviewing, in this case it was absolutely necessary to go over the ground again and again in order to truly appreciate the scale of the band’s achievement. With a band like King 810 genres are absolutely meaningless and whilst the album exists within the realm of metal, there is so much variety here that the only thing it is possible to conclude with any certainty is the fact that the album is easily one of the most intense musical experiences ever committed to tape. What elevates King 810 yet further is the lyrical invention of David Gunn whose central monologues are intricately constructed, darkly evocative and genuinely disturbing. Few writers have so successfully captured the essence of urban decay with such clarity yet here the blood and violence of the streets of Flint are laid bare for all to see. This is a modern masterpiece and easily one of the albums of the year, but don’t expect an easy ride, this is the heart of darkness and no one can journey through it unscarred. 10
