Nightfly
King's X were always going to have a job topping their previous album, Gretchen Goes to Nebraka. With Faith Hope Love they give it a good shot but fall a little short though no doubt it's still an excellent album and ranks highly in their back catalogue. All the King's X ingredients are in place - Doug Pinnick's powerful and soulful vocal delivery, the Beatles influenced backing vocals, Ty Tabor's beautifully full bodied inventive chord structures, the heavy riffs and lush arpeggios and Jerry Gaskill's solid dependable drum patterns.
There are many excellent tracks here - It's Love with lead vocals by Tabor and those Beatles style harmonies well in place and instantly catchy hooks. Fine Art Of Friendship is a slowish paced rocker and has a classic Tabor riff which he really works to great effect towards the end, not a guitar solo as such, just really working the riff and building it to a furious conclusion. MoanJam is the most frantic and fastest song in the King's X catalogue, Gaskill really driving it along at an intense speed and a great Tabor extended guitar solo with no rhythm guitar backing, just Gaskill and Pinnick's throbbing bass.
Their first 2 albums packed a powerful punch but here the heavy riffs get more metallic at times like on I Can't Help It during the verse, Talk To You has a great staccato syncopated rhythm on the verse before speeding up for chorus and We Were Born To Be Loved has a similar metallic staccato rhythm in parts.
The title track sees King's X at their most adventurous. To begin nothing really sets it apart from their formulaic approach to slow paced rockers but around one third of the way into this 9 minute song it locks into a section of a repeated vocal line of Faith Hope Love which after another verse returns again with a subtle build to an intense finish. Good but some may feel they overstretch it a bit. After that intense finish an acoustic track, Legal Kill seems an appropriate way to end the album.
Well worth adding to your King's X collection but if you're new to the band check out Gretchen Goes To Nebraska and their debut Out of the Silent Planet first.