King's X - King's X

With each successive release it seemed like King's X took two steps forward and one back, each time inching closer and closer to breakout mainstream success, only to have it snatched from their fingers - the consistently high praise they received from critics was never enough to sustain anything more than a larger-than-normal cult following. Album number three, Faith Hope Lope, took them father up the charts than they had ever gone prior, and it seemed reasonable to believe that a follow up of similar quality would be enough to take them over the top and into the promised land.

I've written about this album before, so writing a similar overview of King's X again seems redundant, so just the big takeaways: King's X is a stronger album than Faith Hope Love on almost every level and I'm very surprised that it wasn't more popular than it turned out to be. The songs are shorter and more focused, the production is finally tuned to excellence, and the riffs and grooves are second only to Dogman. Seriously, listen to "Black Flag" and "What I Know About Love" - 'nuff said. The've abandoned the power ballads of yesteryear in favor of softer pieces gussied-up with wisps of synthesizers and sitar flourishes, but you can't win them all I guess. Most importantly, though, is the overall tone: finally, King's X gets mad! Sort of. Not really "mad", I guess, but they've at least cut back on the childlike happiness schtick which had really begun to sour by Faith Hope Love and traded it in for a more grounded point of view bordering on a kind of optimistic cynicism, clearly glimpsed in lean and mean numbers like "Prisoner", "Silent Wind", and the instant classic "Lost In Germany". It has less of the song quality whiplash that plagued their earlier records and is perhaps the most consistent album in their discography.

The other big change with King's X was the end of the band's relationship with longtime producer Sam Taylor at the time of the album's release, marking a significant shift in their sound that would become immediately evident on successive works. His impact on their sound is difficult to pin down exactly as he described his part in the group's trademark sound as quite small: 

"If I did anything, I gave King's X a license to be true to themselves" - Sam Taylor, 1996

More than anything, King's X marked the end of an era for this band and they would never make another record that sounded quite like their first four again - for better or worse.

B+