Comments for King's X, Dogman

This is the fifth album by King's X, the first three were released via Megaforce/Atlantic the latest two (including the self titled "King's X") were released directly on Atlantic. This record displays a deepening of the dark reflections which begun to edge into the music of King's X after the making of their first Atlantic only album. The band was beset my a multitude of personal and career setbacks during the making and tours for both Atlantic albums (Their long time manager/producer/director Sam Taylor left them during promotion for King's X, causing them to spend the next year dealing with the legal hassles his departure caused instead of touring and furthering the album) The song "Fool You" from this album is no doubt written about this experience. The were many rumors circulating that the original title for "King's X" was "Lost in the Atlantic". Other songs from this album such as "Shoe" and "Pretend" display a sense of dispair and frustration which was mostly absent on the Megaforce albums. The band that once sang "Love Love LOve" (On "It's Love" from "Gretchen Goes to Nabraska") now sings "Pain Pain" on "Cigarettes". Even the way this album was recorded differs significantly from there previous albums done with Sam Taylor. Producing the record was Brendan O'brian (Pearl Jam, Aerosmith) who asked for the job specifically. As opposed to Sam's hyper-perfectionist approach, Brenden's style of plug-in-and-play gave this record a looser feeling. Song's such as the 51 second punk slammer "Go to Hell" and the Jimi Hendrix cover "Manic Depression" were recorded in a single take. Even with all of these differences the trade-make King's X "Pound" (The sonic combination of near virtuoso lead/rythm guitar from Ty Tabor, the Soulful lead vocals and bass from Doug Pinnick and rich beatlesqe three part harmonies from the entire band including drummer Gerry Gaskill) is still intact and better than ever.

Damn, I just reread what I wrote and I sound like some damn brain dead machine-man rock-critic. O.K. bottom line, this band Kicks mondo BUTT and they've been underapreciated for years. They played Woodstock '94 but if you watched pay-per-view, or bought the record or bought the video you wouldn't have known it. My wife was lucky enough to get a copy of their Woodstock performance (From Doug, Not a bootleg) and on it Doug makes a speach about how he wondered why his mother didn't want him when he grew up (Which wasn't true he found out 35 years later) and how his great-grandmother who raised him NEVER said "I Love You". He spoke of how important it is to let your kids know that you love them no matter what they look like or do. If you don't they will grow up, FUCKED UP. Period. He made that speach in front of 300,000 people and all anybody seem remember from woodstock is the mud. They only thing MTV showed of the performance was "Manic-Depression" and they made the band seem like some lame Hendrix tribute group, but they only performed it cause they like it. It's on the current album and they didn't know they were gonna BE at Woodstock when they put it on. During their '94 tour I beleive that Ty expected them to be dropped by Atlantic, but after Woodstock (They got a hell of a response) their working on a new record. We'll all see what happens when that one comes out.

This album is mega . It just hit me like Senna hitting his favourite corner . It's the best ever and shows maturity in their songwriting and Ty's guitar playing . In Go to Hell , the revived punk era did not escape them . I would of expected some band like Green Day to have sung this

The song "Cigarettes" is the most soulful, feeling track I have ever heard from ANY rock band. It's so downright sad; it hits me like a kick in the gut whenever I give it a spin. The band really has to be congratulated in this regard: the song's overpowering effect leaves you with the message that we're so damn lucky not to be down-and-out, but we could still so easily be. Thanks fellas. Hope to meet you again here in Australia: it's been a long time since Manchester on the "Gretchen" tour. DAVE WILLIAMS

This fantastic album displays the unsurpasable guitar abilitys of Ty Tabour, solo's like the one's in pretend, cigarettes, and flies and blue skies show that he is technicaly the best guitarist ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! ---- Ty

Uh, isn't "It's Love" on the "Faith Hope Love" album?

i read the reviews that have been posted here so far, and i can''t help but feel that i''m going to disappoint some folk - this is a dang good album, and better than 90% of the stuff that got released alongside it, but i kinda saw this as the beginning of the end of king''s x. king''s albums prior to this one were always full of hope and brightness, even in the midst of the struggles the band was obviously going through - this is the point where the hope seemingly got abandoned. not that that was bad in and of itself, as far as the music went, but what always redeemed the weaker songs on previous king''s x efforts was that brightness, that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel quality. it ain''t there on "flies and blue skies", or "sunshine rain", or "pillow." so while this is an album with some of the best songs the band has ever done on it - "pretend" and "fool you" are two great jams, the title track is as clear a statement as any of where the band was at musically and lyrically at the time, and "cigarettes" exceeds the trancendence of everything on gretchen - it''s a horribly uneven album, and it''s telling that this is the first album where king''s x resorts to doing a cover to close things out. it''s a great cover of hendrix'' "manic depression", mind you, but the four songs king''s x had closed albums with to that point were all vastly superior...