KXM - KXM

Another album I wrote about previously, KXM is the tersely named debut record of the hard rock super-trio of the same name, fronted by dUg Pinnick and staffed with Korn's former drummer and the guitar player of Dokken - not exactly my first picks for such a team-up. The last couple of years has seen Pinnick at his most prolific, releasing solo album #4 alongside his various side projects ranging from blues to psychedelia, so KXM's formation just seemed like another hard rock project. As it turns out, though, KXM is a bit more special.

Tonally, KXM's foundations are built on the bones of late-period King's X material - "Stars", "Human Friction", "Faith Is a Room", are the clearest call backs, but enough of the writing here is King's X-ish that I have to wonder if Pinnick was bringing in some excess material from the Ogre Tones or XV sessions for this one (and yes, there are harmony vocals too). While King's X is a clear point of reference throughout the record, the overall focus is more on delivering solid no-nonsense hard rock, and several of these tunes do that very, very well - "Stars", "Rescue Me", "Human Friction", and "Faith Is a Room" contain the perfect balance of barreling riffs and hooky choruses I've heard since, well, King's X last recorded an album. In particular the interplay between drummer Ray Luzier and guitarist George Lynch is what makes the playing on KXM stand out, although vocal performance by Pinnick is album-long highlight as well, as are the majority of the lyrics, which were also all penned by Pinnick along with the vocal arrangements. Pinnick's strength and weakness as a lyricist has always been his ground-level approach to wordplay: pieces like "Picture" and "Black The Sky" are stronger for it, but sometimes he's too on-the-nose (his solo albums are unfortunately good examples of this inconsistency). The topics covered are the usual suspects like love, loneliness, and faith, but hes seems to have a bit more fire in his belly this time ("Love", "Do it Now", "Gunfight") and it certainly fits the material on offer well.

KXM's biggest misstep, then, lies not in its material (although the songs are a bit too long across the board) but it's production - it's very loud, but not in a rich, Tape Head kind of way - more like a Death Magnetic brickwalled kind of way. I get some noticeable ear fatigue after playing it and Pinnicks' bass gets drowned under the wall of guitars a bit too often, but it's certainly not a dealbreaker but here's hoping for a DR score higher than 5 (the much-shit-upon production of The Flesh Prevails clocked in at 3) for KXM numero dos.

B-