The Duke And The King - Long Live The Duke And The King
- Written by Robert Powell
I am unemployed, and hence also very poor… and I live in the most expensive city in Britain. My intention in telling you this is not to invoke some sort of digi-pity (although any donations can be sent to my paypal address), but rather to contextualise the warning I am about to issue about the latest release from the glam-soul-folk outfit The Duke & The King. Here goes…
If you are going through a directionless period of existence, do not listen to Long Live The Duke & The King, as it will stir a dangerous urge to move to a wooded area, live in a log cabin and begin a solitary existence where cute furry rodents are your only friends.
Yes, the second album from the New York hipsters The Duke & The King is a lovely, quaint listen, but unfortunately that’s all it really is. As opening cut ‘Gloria’ drifts into action, the overlapping vocals begin to conjure images of the band’s namesakes floating down the Mississippi river with Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately by the end of the second multi-vocal laden track (‘Shine On You’), this delivery reminds one more of past-it pop stars wearing white silk pyjamas releasing doves than Mark Twain’ great American novel.
The punchy ‘Shaky’ begins to wipe some of the cheesiness away until the sax solo at three minutes opens a fresh can of cringe and aims it directly at the listener’s ears. ‘Right Now’ gets skipped before it hits the five second mark and onto one of the better songs on the album – ‘Hudson River’ is a cracking soul tune; groovy bass line, catchy hook, soulful vocals, and none of that folky rubbish that clouded the earlier cuts. ‘No Easy Way Out’ also stands out for its straight down the line delivery and fantastic vocal performance – the album looks to be on the up, I’m excited, but then next track 'You And I' goes and does this...
“Love is a coke dealers daughter, love is a slave ship at sea”. NEXT!
‘Children Of The Sun’ is a satisfying and successfully executed psychedelic number, even if the multi-vocal smattering does start to annoy by the end. However, as other reviewers have also noted, any musical success is somewhat discredited by its extremely close resemblance to Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’.
‘Have You Seen It’ drifts past without offending or massaging the ears into the six and a half minute finale, ‘Don’t Take That Plane Tonight’. Effectively a three-chord psych-jam complete with falsetto vocals and reversed guitar solos, this seems to be a lazy end to the album and hence leaves the listener feeling bloated and completely unfulfilled.
Long Live The Duke & The King confuses me - I love folk, I love soul - but somehow the combination of acoustic guitars and psychedelic lyrics with soulful vocal backings, whilst satisfying in isolation, sit uncomfortably together as a whole. As I noted above, the album is an undeniably lovely listen, and would be a welcome addition to any summer evening cheese and chardonnay session or hippie festival romance, but for me, a post-university child of the recession (tiny violins!), it just doesn’t work.
Now I must go, I’m meeting a vole on Hampstead Heath in half an hour to chat about the feasibility of a British media student writing a great American novel.