The new record from The Duke & The King may not be a full fledged concept album but it might as well be. The album is so full of songs about lies, recriminations, bad choices, lost loves, regrets and the joys and horrors of a misspent youth that you get the picture pretty quickly. There’s a sad story attached to the making of the record, but since I promptly threw the bio sheet away and would rather not have that influence my listening anyway you’ll have to search that out for yourself. Needless to say the record is a loosely tied together both thematically and musically.
“Union Street” may have the thumpingest bass and the most obnoxious heavy drum beat (Simon Felice was the drummer in The Felice Brothers, after all) but it also is the song on the record that best shows his promise as a writer who can juxtapose images of hopelessness with a glimmer of hope (if you wonder in which song the band proves it can write a hit check out “If You Ever Get Famous” and if you are curious if the band can write a song that isn’t completely melancholy check out the wonderful “Summer Morning Rain”).
“The Morning I Get To Hell” (Kitchen Rehearsal)
“The Devil Is Real” (Kitchen Rehearsal)
