King's X has always been a stranger in a strange land. The band first appeared on the same label as Metallica and Overkill where the marriage of soulful singing to hard-driving rock must have seemed like a sore thumb sticking out. Add to that their slightly evangelical bent, another metal oddity, and one would have written off the band by record three.

What King’s X’s saving grace has been all these years, and all these CDs later, is their musicianship, but it hasn’t been an easy time. Questions of faith, family, personal lives and all that entails have dogged the group for a few years now and the music has shown it. The previous discs, “Please Come Home… Mr. Bulbous” and “Manic Moonlight” had a grim, burdened feeling about them. But the band is back with “Black Like Sunday” and it is a homecoming in many ways.

First and foremost, King’s X hasn’t been this upbeat in many years. Yes, there are some somber moments and some clunkers too, but on the whole the disc is refreshingly easy to like. Doug Pinnick explores punk, reggae, throat busting screaming and incorporates it into his vocal delivery. Missing is Ty Tabor’s turns at the lead, relegating himself to backup, but as producer I can only assume this is his decision. At least I don’t get the feeling he was forced into this role quite the way I did when this dynamic was introduced on the “Dogman” release. Drummer Jerry Gaskill gets to explore lots of different sounds as well.

Songs like “Working Man”, “Finished”, and “Two” exemplify what this group is best at, but other tracks get whacked across the knees by jarring and sometimes poor lyrics. The song “Down” is beautiful ballad material and merits inclusion on a future “Best Of…” compilation, but there’s a line within the first verses… Movie directors always talk about elements that need to be excised or else the viewer gets “bounced out of the movie”. When Pinnick sings, “…Shades up / I take a pee”, I’m out of the song. I can’t help it.

I’m hoping and praying that the song “Rock Pile” is a satire of the ‘I Love Rockin’ All Nite’ variety because, when taken at face value, it’s lame. It’s really lame. “Danger Zone” is actually a fine song with a tried and true King’s X topic, disenfranchised youth acting out in a silent cry for help. Still, the term ‘Danger Zone’ sounds alarms, calls attention to itself as a tough bit of false hyperbole and trips up the intent of the song. Gripe and moan, gripe and moan. But what’s good on the disc is very good, like the power pop of “You’re The Only One”, the metallic, reggae, Police-like “Johnny” and the punky slam of “Save Us”.

One suspects that with the band members’ varied side projects all going at the same time (Pinnick fronts Poundhound as Tabor has solo releases and a role in the groups Platypus, Jughead and The Jelly Jam), this configuration doesn’t get as much attention as it used to. I hope that this will change because, as I can’t stress enough, the good on this release outshines the bad in many respects.

The multimedia portion of the disc includes the lyrics so you can verify that the song says, “I take a pee”, a screensaver and some video footage from 1986.

Again, for everyone who felt that the last few releases were too dour and dark, “Black Like Sunday” is kind of a treat. No, it’s not “Gretchen Goes To Nebraska” or “Tape Head”, but not much out there is. Enjoy it for what it does offer and hope that all concerned reign it in for the next time around.

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King's X

Black Like Sunday

Released: May 20, 2003
Origination Year: 2003
Time: 56:32
Tracks:14
Produced by:Ty Tabor and King's X
Engineered by:Ty Tabor
Mastered by:N/A
Style: Studio
Format: CD
Enhancement: Enhanced CD
Label: Brop! Records/Metal Blade
Website:
www.kingsxonline.com

Black Like Sunday
Rock Pile
Danger Zone
Working Man
Dreams
Finished
Screamer
Bad Luck
Down
Won't Turn Back
Two
You're The Only One
Johnny
Save Us