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Saturday, October 1, 2016

Album Review: Resonance by Kingsnake





This album is a road album.

Not in the way one normally thinks of a road album where you can drive through the countryside mindlessly while being entertained with what comes out of the speakers. No this is a road album and the machine driving is Philadelphia’s own Kingsnake and you are the one getting run over.

This gas guzzler doesn’t have heated seats or child safety locks and it sure as hell ain’t got a back-up camera because it just doesn’t do reverse. Kingsnake’s fourth album Resonance growls and rumbles like an eight cylinder big block while spitting shredded tires in plumes of burnout smoke.

I have long been a fan of Kingsnake and feel this latest album is their finest work to date.  This 43 minute journey starts with Dairy Of A Bad Man which certainly seems appropriate. The band fires up the engine and announce their intentions with an up tempo warning that gives way to the growling vocals of Bill Jenkins:    
Well lemme tell you I was raised by wolves, yeah that’s what all the people say
"He needs to mind his manners and read more books!” As they beg the creator that I would grow to be a civilized, pacified, well-dressed mess

The pedal gets expertly pushed by the rhythm section of Matt Farnan on drums and Matt Kahn on bass while the high octane guitar work of Brian Merritt brings the song to full bore. This is how you start a road trip right here people.




There are no sightseeing points of interest on this voyage as every song demands your full attention to the road and every gravelly turn brings a flavor all its own. The barroom brawl feel of Evening Blues gives way to the driving bass thump of Preachers Of Heresy. Right when you think you have it all figured out Miss Sorceress is in front of you and all you can do is grip the steering wheel tighter and hang on as it takes you through two separate gears of heavy goodness. The crushing second part of this one is Kingsnake at their best, ripping loose, barely holding the road and really not even giving a shit about it just knowing that they will make it through by the grace of the gods.
 
Skeletons takes things down some challenging terrain so they back off the gas a bit to keep the wheels firmly on the dusty road they are taking us. Behind The Sun gets us back on the open pavement in a style that harkens back to the rock gods of yesterday updated with some of the latest technologies. It’s like a resto-mod ’72 Mustang Fastback with a brand new 600 horsepower crate engine.

Next up is Athena and she is the shortest song on the album but this goddess of wisdom comes with a fury. End Of Time is a heavy blues masterpiece that showcases what I so enjoy about this ride. As the penultimate track we get the wonderfully greasy bass line backed up with a drum beat that forces your head back and forth in time. The guitars go from wailing out from on high to chugging heavy from a place blacker than fresh asphalt. The message of the lyrics has one of the most memorable lines in an album full of them:  

The hunter, the pig, and the preacher
Who you gonna trust when it’s the end of time?

The album closes with Phoenix which is simply, a fucking powerhouse. It is the perfect heavy, hard driving, raucous close to the album. Resonance ends with a rebirth and nothing will ever be the same again.

What impresses me most about this album is not the individual performances by these fine musicians which are all fantastic, but how all these parts fit together into a cohesive, beautifully-crafted, finely-tuned beast of a machine. Each note, each song belongs right where it is and makes the trip feel like an expertly guided tour of heavy, bluesy, dirt-under-your-fingernails rock and roll and one of my favorite albums of the year.

Just remember this beast gets eight gallons to the mile and definitely ain’t street legal.

Hold on tight people.

http://www.kingsnakephilly.com/


- WM

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