King Champion Sounds - Different Drummer

by Adrian Janes

published: 15 / 10 / 2013

King Champion Sounds - Different Drummer

Label: Wormer Bros.
Format: CD

Passionate but ranting and vocally monotonous debut album from Dutch punk act, King Champion Sounds

Review

Originally put together by guitarist/keyboard player Ajay Saggar for a gig supporting Mike Watt, Dutch band King Champion Sounds have gone on to record an album that offers some excitement, some promise and some aural torture. The tracks fall into three groups. ‘Here We Go Again’, ‘World of Confusion’ and ‘Shop Drop’ are the most stirring, displaying a punkish energy, dubwise touches and anger married with tight playing. Bursts of brass evoke the Redskins or even early Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Unfortunately vocalist/lyricist G.W. Sok (formerly of the Ex) lets things down musically, as his style is to declaim rather than sing. His passion is unmistakeable, but this approach ends up as a strident monotony.The band show a tendency to find a groove and stick to it with little development which, however initially thrilling, can also make for a fairly monotonous experience by the end of a song. More atmospheric are ‘Orbit Macht Frei’ and ‘Shouting at the Moon. They have a big, echoing sound characterised by sweeping keyboard, searching brass notes, nimble bass and finely-judged guitar. Lyrically ‘Orbit’ is a condemnation of what Sok terms the “ruthless religion” of television (a counterpart to the opiate theme of the Beatnigs‘ ‘Television’ - the Drug of the Nation‘), while ‘Shouting‘ concerns alienation and the thirst for freedom. On these, Sok’s delivery is more recitation than rant, and is the more effective for it. A couple of fairly nondescript instrumentals, the formless jazz of ‘Free-dum Trail‘ and the sombre, flamenco-inflected ‘El Problemo Grande’, make up the rest of the album proper. This leaves the so-called bonus track that is ‘Massivemissivemessage from the Weird Mouth’. This starts with an extract from the Nazi William Joyce (aka Lord Haw Haw), before settling into 10 minutes of droning synths accompanying a diatribe from what appears to be a man from Birmingham: it’s like the fruit of an ill-advised mash-up of Throbbing Gristle and Ron Atkinson. So for all the heartfelt musicianship of everyone involved (with a special nod to spirited 17 year-old drummer Mees Siderius, who ably complements his more experienced bandmates), I think this album suffers particularly from the lack of attention to vocal melody. Sok clearly has things to say, but I’d argue that a song like John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People’ is ultimately more effective than anything here because it has such a strong tune in alliance with the lyrics, and therefore gets inside people’s heads (and hearts) all the more deeply. King Champion Sounds have real musical ability, but it’s whether they can translate that into songs that work on all levels that will determine how far they go.