Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith
“It’s that time of the evening where I need you to meow for me...”
Archy Marshall at long last returns to hallowed home soil, armed with a plethora of instrument-wheeling bandits, a new album, and a rapturous audience ready for the songwriter’s blues.
It’s that moment on a Tuesday night, the leading singer and guitarist under the moniker King Krule offers a whimsical note to an inebriated audience on the second string of their two London shows. The evening’s already been filled with a reeling list of Marshall’s eclectic sounds over the past ten or so years, enlightening those to some new ethereal airwaves from his latest 5th LP, Space Heavy. Yet before he initiates his finale track off his adored debut LP, a collective meow fills the capacious Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith: a stark, facetious note against such heart-wrenching blues that’s consumed the preceding hour and a half.
For the evening commenced with the band’s presence amidst complete darkness, slowly illuminating King Krule’s 6-person entourage with the outlining of their silhouettes. A seething handful of throwbacks by virtue of Krule’s beloved LPs pre-Pandemic (The Ooz; Man Alive!) invariably strike while the iron’s hot with ‘Alone Again’ offering a stoner-classic of lockdown blues (a-la Ian Dury and Nick Cave); ‘Dum Surfer’ injecting its punk afflictions like a grunge-inflicted smack to the face as the saxophone spasms gnaw away at its bitter end.
Yet the aforementioned debut of Krule’s, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, sparks something more teething for the crowd: raucous renditions of such songwriter traits earmarked by the early-2010’s. Whilst Krule, and many others of this era, have since surpassed these comparatively straightforward hallmarks of songwriting, the crowd have a thing or two else to say against ‘Easy Easy’s bedroom indie-rock veneer and ‘Baby Blue’s heart-wrenching balladry, strangely reminiscent of today’s latest crop of bedroom-bound songwriters (Phoebe Bridgers; Snail Mail; Soccer Mommy).
Fast-forwarding roughly a decade to Krule’s current appearance in London, his latest crop of tracks from Space Heavy fall short of enticing us in the same eclectic manners. ‘When Vanishing’ and ‘If Only It Was Warmth’ provide a sunken, subdued abyss pertaining to Krule’s newly-founded aura, anchored by his search for "losing people and situations to the guillotine of the universe" through recent years. Perhaps, in another context or environment, the spatial landscape of these inflections may strike more effectively, however, they instead flop like a damp squid alongside the intrepid nature of Krule’s yesteryears.
When Krule’s entourage do coalesce, however, they wield with an esteemed prowess, utilising the Apollo’s sizeable scope and lighting rig which breathes a warming, deep blue into their production. Whilst Marshall will forever retain his signature bass-driven vocals, Ignacio Salvadores’ saxophone cries with conviction at sporadic interjections cutting against an atmospheric metropolis painted by the rest of the group’s guitars, electronics and percussion. We may never know when these brethren will return to home soil, or indeed in which musical lane, but King Krule’s performance here proves Marshall’s status as one of the most progressive songwriters of our modern era of guitar-wielding artists set on deriving the blues in one moment, cat meowing in another.
7/10
King Krule's latest LP, Space Heavy, is out now via XL Recordings and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of Josh Renaut whose work can be found here.
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