Knockout Kings "The Lion" CD
[Doll House]
Whoa, I had no idea what to expect here, but this was not it! Catchy modern sounding emo with solid songwriting and a pretty typical style that suits me just fine since there are plenty of vocal harmonies, the recording is decent, and I'm always into bands of this nature that add a hint of heaviness to the mix. I'd definitely cite a comparison to Taking Back Sunday and that kind of stuff in the band's use of singing lead vocals with backing screams and lots of guitar layering with pull-off runs, octave chords, melodic rhythms... the usual array. "Rebel With Claws" has a lot of layering involved musically and vocally and can get pretty intense at times, while the title track is a sappy sort of outro with nothing but piano and lightly filtered vocals. "Red-Headed Stranger" is among the heavier tracks in its use of thicker chords and picking patterns, but there's no absence of melody anywhere, and I wouldn't really call anything metallic per se either... but there are some moments that are definitely chunkier than average. "It Was Always Easy Saying Yes" is among the more creative tracks herein, definitely taking a more aggressive road that stands out from the other songs and makes for a punchier delivery that I really dig (sans some of the vocal work, which can be overdramatic over the bass breaks), so I'd like to hear more of this area explored from a musical angle. The recording's solid, but it does need work to really benefit the band's approach. As it stands the mix is fairly even, but it's not quite smooth enough, so I'd like to hear more of a full sounding low-end with brighter highs. It's pretty thick right now but it's kind of muddy, and somehow there are still some gaps in the mix, so... if they could clean that up to sound as polished as their more successful contemporaries they'd be good to go. Visually things look nice and consistent with sepia toned photographs of circus tents and clean text. The band sounds pretty young, so perhaps that factors into the lyrics being fairly terrible in their dealings with broken hearts and all that junk, what with lines like "Honey hide your steak knife cold sweat drips from your aching head, " or, "My hands are red your heart is heavy beauty is a backstab." I'm not into that crap at all, but the songwriting is pretty god damn good for this style, I have to say. Original? No. And in fact I'd cite a few areas as being almost too directly lifted for the band's own good, but I think this is their debut EP, in which case it's a pretty impressive offering, so... if the emo bubble doesn't burst anytime soon I won't be at all surprised to see this band move on to bigger and better things. (6/10)
Running time - 21:46, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: The Fearsome Foursome, It Was Always Easy Saying Yes]
Doll House Records - http://www.dollhouseinc.com

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