King Krule at Hammersmith Apollo review

King Krule at Hammersmith Apollo review | Existentialist staying power

★★★★☆
King Krule showed just why he’s endured and accrued a devoted following, with a frenzied, jazz-like arrangement at Hammersmith Apollo. Read our review.

by Teddy Coward |

★★★★☆

King Krule showed just why he’s endured and accrued a devoted following, with a frenzied, jazz-like arrangement at Hammersmith Apollo. Read our review.
Listening back to King Krule’s eponymous 2011 EP seems almost incomprehensible now. At just 17 years old, the precocious, baby-faced singer-songwriter was about as existential as you could be for such an age; wallowing in ‘The Noose of Jah City’ (“It eats away at the brain / As you strain to try and maintain”) and sounding weighed-down even when trying to be upbeat on ‘Bleak Bake’. Yet whether you devoured his melancholic musings or shunned them, wanting to avoid the despair, he struck a chord and seemed to earn a cult following seemingly from the get-go. At Hammersmith’s storied Apollo venue last night, you could see the boy who’d now become the man, being championed by those who chose to grow up on a partial diet of his bleak tunes. A little older, and a little wiser, he’s grown into himself, weathered by experience in being a father with five albums to his name.
King Krule review

Photo: Josh Renaut

The most recent of those albums, Space Heavy, was an exceptional one at that. What’s more, it proved testament to the artistic authenticity of Archy Marshall. Where some have tried, and often failed, to experiment with different directions, a consistent thread runs throughout King Krule’s entire output, yet somehow avoiding the pitfalls of being samey.
READ MORE: Black Country, New Road at Shepherd’s Bush Empire review | A triumphant return to their spiritual home
Whilst the background scenery on the night was draped in the red hue of the Space Heavy album cover aesthetic, it would be 2020 album Man Alive!’s ‘Perfecto Miserable’ that kicked-off proceedings, the track’s voicemail intro segueing the audience from whatever murmurings they were having into the theatrics of the show. The subsequent ‘Alone, Omen 3’ (which follows accordingly on the album), signalled a feverish, prowling energy to King Krule’s accompanying band; in particular, saxophonist Ignacio Salvadores, who stalked the stage and sometimes danced maniacally.
King Krule

Photo: Josh Renaut

The setlist arrangement felt, perhaps unsurprisingly, like a way of ingratiating the new album among old favourites for the King Krule diehards, as we were given our first taste of Space Heavy via the jagged climes of ‘Pink Shell’ (here, Salvadores’ sax put to good use), back to the early days 6 Feet Beneath The Moon number ‘A Lizard State’. Yet unlike some gigs, there wasn’t the usual stop-start call-and-response. Instead of the standard show procedure of opening chords being met by jubilant yells once the crowd figures out the track, much of this evening’s show – as on King Krule’s record – melded into itself, the tight-knit band transitioned seamlessly into each song. An eight track segment of exclusively Space Heavy tracks, played at a random order from how they appear on the album, demonstrated a band in total command of their source material.
READ MORE: James Blake at Alexandra Palace review | Playing London into heaven
I say there wasn’t the usual pangs of jubilation at the start of each track. But that’s nigh impossible to contain for a throwback like ‘Easy Easy’. Released a decade ago, the track has soundtracked many a frustrated solitary bout; be it a lonesome comedown, or 4am trip home on a bleary bus route. It’s the kind of track that feels like it directly speaks to you, and only you, with its groans of “your dead-end job / Has been eating away your life”, for instance; by consequence, having everyone in the room rally around the track made you feel connected in your mutual sense of isolation – a strange, but powerful concoction. And whilst we were all soaking in the sense of ourselves having grown up, it would be Archy’s mum who was celebrating her actual birthday on the night. The crowd’s rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’, led of course by her son onstage, induced a familial feel.
King Krule Hammersmith Apollo

Photo: Josh Renaut

Of course, you can’t have it all, and any King Krule fan worth their salt knows life ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be. And although we were treated to fellow 6 Feet Beneath the Moon favourite ‘Baby Blue’, it would have capped off a considerable show had King Krule played even a slither from his debut EP – you know, for old time’s sake. But after a relatively lengthy will-he-won’t-he interval buffer, only for King Krule to return to the stage for ‘Out Getting Ribs’, we’d had more than our fill. Indeed, for anyone who grew up devouring King Krule’s angst-ridden output, this show was a reminder that no matter how far you’ve come, somethings will endure – matters that a 17-year-old Archy Marshall was privy to, and which the artist still expounds to this day.

Leave a Reply

More like this