King Krule - The Noose Of Jah City

Back when Archy Marshall was releasing tracks under the Zoo Kid moniker, his output tended to comment on the dark side of the human condition. Rugged and raw tracks that saw Marshall’s musicianship take centre stage. But his shift to the guise of King Krule appears to have mellowed him, if this taster track of his new EP (being released through the trendier-than-thou True Panther label) is anything to go buy. His former rage has dulled to a melancholy that fits delicately beside the dubby atmospherics that fills every second of the song. Lyrically, it’s still pretty bleak, an allusion to "suffocating in concrete" offsets the genteel manner with menacing glee and cries of "I wonder why?" add more layers to the self-doubt and anxiousness that only serve in encasing the track in mellow paranoia. By allowing himself to write from a more detached angle, Marshall has succeeding in crafting a song that is at once delicate and bold, shifting dreamily onwards whilst never allowing itself to lose focus.

By Ned Powley