With a name like King Kraken, you’d better be able to back that up with some serious music, preferably with Cthulhu on standby, ready to deal with any dissenting nonconformists! Continuing the suspiciously tenuous (and possibly interdimensional) cephalopod theme, I’m here to blast out some metaphorical ink onto paper and enlighten you oh reader, as to what their new, self-published album March of the Gods brings to the table!
The concise answer, my friends, would be a swathe of melodic metal, mixing Metallica sounds with occasional Manowar themes but with a more accessible sound in truth than both. You’ve a group of middle-aged guys, doing metal as how most fans who grew up on Priest, Saxon et al. would describe it. It’s not too fast, but it’s certainly not slow, it’s aggressive but it’s not Slipknot-esque, and the vocal is crisp and articulated at a level that pleases me greatly.
There’s actually some really interesting tracks here. Entertainingly the final album track was the first to grab my attention as I’d hit the random button and that’s what it threw at me! “Under the Sun” feels like a lament, a great way to finish a release with its slow but pounding tempo and a bridge solo that’s surprisingly dropped into a major key which adds a brightening sparkle, however, there’s a standout track which come in three songs earlier. “Preacher” is as doomy and gloomy as it gets, leaning towards early Sabbath with its tone and vocal, and then you hit just past the two minute mark and it’s suddenly solo city, complimented with a barrage of guitars which if you’re on the dancefloor, will have your neck a good half inch longer and damn sore in the morning! This is absolutely single material and I’d like to see a video release for this sometime in the future please!
Curiously, the official single is slightly lighter. “Berzerker”, has Mark Donoghue channelling his inner Hetfield and you can see why they’ve dropped this as the track to portray their sound to the masses. A nice use of vocal effects with the utterance “This is the time of my awakening” provides a contrast to the tone, and adds that element of individuality to the song too. It’s a testament to the production that this was picked up on and used so effectively. It feels strange to say that this is also one of the longer songs on the album, as it’s only just topping four minutes, and my instinct is that they’ll extend this out live to give people chance to have a little fun. The same can be said for “Hero”, a ballad that’s deserving of a single release too, showcasing a vocal that’s all Donoghue’s own, and an accompanying solo which shows proficiency but also restraint to fit the song, something much bigger artists (Yes Zakk Wilde I’m looking at you!) seem to forget is integral to maintain the feel and emotion of a song.
Other tracks, such as “Magnum Opus”, and the opener if you’re listening in order “Scream” are solid too. “Scream” especially lays out who and what King Kraken aspire to be, which is a band for fans of other well-established bands, but bringing song writing skills to bear which can set them aside from their peers. On this evidence it’s working! There’s genuinely nothing here to dislike, and skilful solos like the one sneakily inserted into “El Giganto” etc add to a feeling of professionalism. If you were to drop any one of the ten tracks on a compilation album like Axe Attack 2, (you don’t mess with the original for fear of setting something far worse than Lovecraft’s malicious malevolent mollusc free!), no-one would bat an eyelid. High praise indeed.
As a seasoned fan of rock and metal, I had no clue what to expect when ‘King Kraken: March of the Gods’ dropped into my lap. Not a name I’d encountered before and with nothing to go on but my first “No-one likes bad Calamari, so I hope this is done well!” thought I was more than impressed with what was served up.
So much so that, I grabbed myself a rum, and listened to it again. The things I do for music!
Track Listing:
1. Scream
2. El Giganto
3. Berzerker
4. March of the Gods
5. Hero
6. Vigilante
7. Preacher
8. Magnum Opus
9. Chainsaw Saviour
10. Under the Sun
Band Members:
Mark Donoghue – vocals
Adam Healey – guitars
Pete Rose – guitars
Karl Meyer – bass
Richard Lee Mears – drums
Upcoming Tour Dates
