Album Review: King Krule- Six Feet Beneath The Moon

So while listening to the full length debut from British wunderkind King Krule, AKA Archie Marshall, there are a few thoughts that go through my head.

The first is, “Why is he doing such an awful impression of Joe Strummer?”

The second is, “Is he REALLY British? Because it sounds like he is attempting the worst fake cockney accent ever.”

And the third thing is, “Who is the intended audience for King Krule?”

Marshall first rose to Internet buzz level fame thanks to his self-titled EP, released at the tail end of 2011, which included the strange, hypnotic, reverby single “The Noose of Jah City.” The lo-fi aesthetic Marshall used masked, to an extent, his inability to grasp the language of his homeland, and the song itself had a vibe very similar to that of the group The Radio Dept.

On Marshall’s LP, 6 Feet From The Moon, the lo-fi aesthetic is cleaned up by all that money XL Records has thrown at him—it’s a bizarre record; spastic and cleanly produced, yet rough around the edges for “indie cred.” Stylistically, I have no idea what you’d file King Krule under. There are elements of Rockabilly, there’s jazz guitar playing, there are beats, and there are atmospheric keyboards. The genre hopping is slightly reminiscent of Cody Chesnutt’s 2002 debut LP, The Headphone Masterpiece.

And musically, I have no problem with this album. It’s Marshall’s awful singing voice. He grunts and yelps his way through the lyrics, everything covered in a terrible caricature of a cockney dialect. Dude may as well just be saying, “’Ey Gov’nah, British British British.”

Some may find his delivery earnest, or “real,” or whatever. I don’t. It makes even listening to one song a laughable chore. And I can’t help but wonder who the typical King Krule fan would be?

Who is going to go out and plunk down their hard earned money for this? Other young British kids who also are unable to grasp their own language? Hip American kids who buy and make themselves like everything that gets mentioned on Pitchfork? Enlightened middle age white folk who listen to NPR?

Who will listen to Marshall barking out god knows what, and think, “Well shit you guys. I really identify with this. King Krule is really affecting me on a whole different level”?

Please show me that person. I’d love to meet them and figure out what they are seeing in this that I am missing.

A lot of contemporary albums are short—between 30 and 45 minutes, mostly. 6 Feet From The Moon, is pushing almost an hour—52 minutes. That’s like 51 minutes too long. It’s a slow album—sequencing and pacing were obviously not a priority for Marshall when he was working on this. There are times when this album trudges along at the pace of the director’s cut of a film about molasses rolling up a hill.

I certainly listen to some things that could be considered an “acquired listen.” I think this goes a step beyond that—I’m left wondering where one goes to acquire the tolerance to listen to something like this.

6 Feet From The Moon is available next Tuesday via XL Recordings.