There are times when you need the hypernatural perfection of an act like Kraftwerk but there are also times that you need something scuffed up and borderline annoying to liven your listening please and wake up your senses like a cold shower. Jake King’s new release Rock And Roll is an abrasive joy. There are five songs that barely scrape together 8 minutes of music. But what a wild ride those 8 minutes are.
This is a drag race with Link Ray. An old-fashioned low-down and dirty rumble with chains and flick knives. This is the 8-track you put on the in-car system when your hot rod is careening along the flaming road to Hell. The opening track is the title track and it’s crackling with lo-fi drama and amphetamine energy. This is rock and roll that has been dragged behind a car across a gravel road and then mixed down through sandpaper. The propulsion of ‘2026’ is gritty sped up psychedelia which even manages to cram in a kickass guitar solo into its 1m 30s run time.
‘I Feel So Paranoid’ could warp your speaker cones if played too loud, especially at the nitrous boost of the key change. ‘Little Did I Know’ is a rocket ride in a hailstorm and it’s only on ‘Last Call’ that the pace slows down to a sprint with its pounding boom-bap-bap rhythm.
Rock And Roll starts and ends with screaming feedback and in between everything is abused: distorted vocals grate, drums are splashy and relentless, guitars slice through like papercuts, the low-end bass is dirty and blown out, and tape hiss glues everything together like walking through cobwebs. This is the dark alley of rock and roll, a heady mix of musicianship and mayhem and it is glorious. I couldn’t help but recall the words of the Baron in James Whales 1931 version of May Shelly’s Frankenstein “it’s alive, it’s alive. It’s alive, IT’S ALIVE”
Jake King: Bandcamp | Instagram
Review by Paul F Cook
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