GutterPutter

King Krule is the stage name of Archie Ivan Marshall, a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose influences lean towards jazz infusion, post-punk, and trip hop. This is about as close as you can sum up the general direction of his style as noted in his early career by the Los Angeles Times. His music is around a good while prior to the underground revolution in the late 2010s with its kaleidoscopic array of genres being seen as an arguable precursor. Not bad for someone who’s been in the scene for a very long time since his late teens in 2013.

That being said, Marshall seems to struggle with standing out as much as the younger peers like Squid, Yard Act, or even the relatively late bloomers in Wet Leg. At least he’s happily living together with his partner and their daughter since 2019. However, he does frequently move home between London and Liverpool in the years leading up to his latest album’s release. That album just so happens to be Space Heavy. It’s an ambitious look into what he described as “the space haunted by dreams of love, touching a narrative of lost connection, [and] losing people and situations to the guillotine of the universe.” Simply put, it largely tackles relationships and the importance of treasuring it even if your mental health is starting to collapse in itself. 

With the context in mind, Space Heavy’s neo-psychedelic twist on King Krule’s usual genre-blending artistry might not feel as ethereal as it could’ve been. Instead, its depressive mood, established through the slugged guitar riff in ‘Our Vacuum’ and the bleating reverbs in ‘Filmsier’, can swing between melancholic and tepid. Its downtempo vibe adds a nice touch in standout tracks like the romantic ‘Seaforth’ or the anxious ‘If Only It Was Warmth’ where the guitars and the withering vocals adds ambiguity to growing as an individual. Yet, its slow pacing can come off as being dull without any frank emotion as noted in the title track where the maniacal refrain detracts from the rest of the song in its hyperbolic theatricality.

Moreover, the “space” that is mentioned as a key component for the album feels as if it exists in a vacuum. Very rarely do you ever find yourself engulfed in the same area of desolation as Marshall does in this album. In a thematic sense, ‘Flimsy’ and especially ‘When Vanishing’ stand out as masterpieces when it comes to upholding the theme at its most concrete rather than its most abstract. To hear the swooning bowed strings be dragged out in a legato as the airy sax, erratic mechanical percussion, and occasional feminine voice peers through gives off an impression that hitting rock bottom is imminent. ‘Seagirl’ is also a nice little inclusion for Raveena’s featured singing which, in its ghastly feeling, imagines the fear of breaking up as if it could result in our vices winning us over. 

The real issues that persist in Space Heavy is that it revolves so much in the dark side of love that it offers little to no nuance on its impact towards mental deterioration. The closest we get to seeing that is ‘Empty Stomach Space Cadet’ with the third-person perspective in the pre-chorus after a vague murmur about yearning for a loved one. There’s a dread that comes with imaging “[him waiting] inside of your brain” as you gradually lose control. It’s a kind of dullness that works because the seemingly numbing effect does indeed make you feel like you’re about to go on auto-pilot as you think about your relationship. Unfortunately, such an effect doesn’t appear throughout the album. ‘Tortoise of Independency’, ‘That Is My Life, That Is Yours’, and ‘From the Swamp’ are three ‘fillers’ that are so preoccupied with mystifying the love interest that we learn nothing about the narrator’s head space (no pun intended). 

I tried to find something about the album that I generally enjoy. Sure, the varied vocal performance is a nice touch as felt in ‘Wednesday Overcast’ and the post-punk vibes in ‘Pink Shell’ were a minor plus to enjoy. Yet, the pseudo-Lovecraftian edginess of ‘Hamburgerphobia’ (where the title frankly feels cheesy without any of the kitschy charm) blows wide open the lack of solid motifs. Instead of personifying our anxieties and mental illnesses as conspiratorial vanguards against our happiness and our loved ones, there’s a need to portray everything and everyone as monsters. It’s such a myopic presentation that feels like it skips through the potential commentary that could be found in moving between different homes and what it means to be floating in your personal space. I can name an album or two that I considered to have been an exemplary example for the ordeal.

Space Heavy is more than likely going to be a kind of listen that fans of either King Krule or bands with a rather baritone lead vocalist would find to be enjoyable. Its cynicism, downtempo rhythm, and echoey production is at a nice enough quality to warrant a handful of listens. Unfortunately, the execution, where the qualities all add up to be more than the sum of their parts, makes for a flat and plain texture where the short song durations would render the highlights better off in an EP rather than in an official studio album. I didn’t have any expectations coming into this LP, but I do end my listening experience feeling underwhelmed at what it could’ve been.