King Krule-The OOZ Review
23-year-old London native Archy Marshall (aka King Krule) is always finding room for improvement on his music. His debut projects, a self titled EP and the 2013 album 6 Feet Beneath the Moon had a personalized bedroom-recording studio quality to them, but also showcased Krule’s early talent for handling mature thematic ideas. On standout singles “Easy Easy” and “Baby Blue”, he’d be crooning sorrowfully over young love and run-ins with the London Police, while tracks like “Rock Bottom” and “Border Line” handled insanity and societal isolation. His 2015 sophomore project A New Place 2 Drown was a departure from his past sound, forgoing his quiet poetry and guitarwork for atmospheric electronica (likely inspired by his work with English ambient duo Mount Kimbie) that demanded the listener’s attention, only allowing vocal interjections between breaks in the layered synthetic composition.
The OOZ is a different beast altogether, a 19-track project running a substantial length past either of his past works. However like any great musician, there’s elements of his previous ideas dotted throughout the album, with lengthy electronic flourishes appearing on “Czech One” and “Cadet Limbo”, and the mournful depression of Beneath the Moon channeled in the opening track “Biscuit Town” and “Lonely Blue”. However the majority of the album feels entirely unique to anything Marshall has before explored, flowing as an ever changing sonic mass and fitting around the aforementioned songs like “the ooz” the project is named after. Single “Dum Surfer”, is an absolute enigma in itself, the first half possessing a grungy Ramones-esque punkness that feels like something you’d hear off a decaying (side referencing the hilarious zombie-helmed music video for the track) jukebox in a dive bar, while the second half swells with an upbeat flair hefted by the warm saxophone that sneaks into the background, something you’d be more likely to hear in a dimly-lit jazz lounge. The sing-songy “Vidual” is helmed by a growing guitar riff that reads like a cousin to the B-52’s “Rock Lobster”, with Krule referencing his internal self-loathing and aggressive attitude towards a girl, secretly fantasizing about watching the city around them burn and “collecting ashes for his mantlepiece”. The closely following “Half Man Half Shark” has an additional weirdness and receptiveness to it, with Krule barking over the instrumental in a braggadocious gravel and calling attention to his “corrosive touch” and the “twisted adrenaline racing through my bones”. Marshall doesn’t always paint himself as the villain however, with album highlight “Czech One” acting as a mellow recollection of past mistakes and providing some of the finest poetry on The OOZ.
The OOZ is far and away Marshall’s best and most ambitious project to date, utilizing his full vocal range from whisper to raspy shout, showing off his instrumental talent, bringing in a wide range of influences and stylistic choices, and making each moment of the album’s over an hour runtime feel intimately connected with the last. The energetic tracks are incessantly catchy earworms, while the downtime tightly knits around them to create somber moments of introspection. King Krule’s internal monologue is on full display throughout The OOZ, but his attitude towards the world may best be perceived on backend track “The Cadet Leaps”, where he reads:
“Above and beyond all the rooftops
The space cadet waltz’ through the sky
Lost in his search for distant forms of life”
Some may picture The OOZ’s cover art as an aircraft, leaving behind a lingering sunset-colored vapor trail throughout a clear skyline. But after a thorough listen of the project it’s clear that Marshall sees the image as self-depicting: the shuttle-encased space cadet far from home, falling helplessly from the atmosphere and passing through a great expanse into the uncertain.
