photo by Courtney Fitzpatrick
The ZZ busker punk blues iteration of "Live Like an Animal" and the sea-salt sprinkled tropical punk psychedelia of of "Way Too High", by Bozeman, Montana's King Ropes, are so divergently different but connected by sonic off kilter D.N.A. From their latest and 6th album, "Idaho", these two songs may feel the most separate from each other. The jostling beat, blues rock ramble, and sort of Sprechgesang (talk singing) vocal style instantly made me fall into the song. Not only is vocalist, songwriter Dave Hollier's aloof , jaded snarl so perfect for the words he is spewing, the musical breaks speak to the kind of 90's Beck-ian shuffle with shades of Cracker and The Jim Carroll Band. It all feels subversive, somewhere between cow punk and fear gach punk and the one guy who has lost it at that one local liquor store. "Way Too High", might be the yang to "LLAA"'s yin. Slippery and wet with an endearing and acerbic sort of psychedelic indie rock predilections. It sways like a chill house party until it erupts into something else in the outro, overall feeling like Mac DeMarco meets White Fence meets Wand.
While you can consider these two songs great appetizers, the rest of "Idaho" will fully satiate you and have you in an art coma rubbing your belly. Like the Lou Reed meets Bowie-esque sway of "Two Shoes" or the sideways, cascading alt pop Western noir of "Radio Jane" with it's pearly keys and new wave guitars, or the darkly romantic vastness of "Broken Cup" that somehow feels seeded from 70's icons like Van Morrison or Ry Cooder. You might feel cross generational blending of country and bluesy doo wop punk on the wonderfully evocative and beautiful "Ride in Your Car" and swamp blues manifestations on the diaristic mind bender "International Shortwave" that feels like a forlorn indie film within the dirt devils of Oklahoma City. The curiously named "Succulent Thief" is full of whimsy abstractions and experimental places like an amalgam of artists like Flaming Lips and Violent Femmes. Finally, the album's namesake "Idaho" is a track that feels the most avant garde in a kind of alt rock, meets post punk, meets art rock, meets new wave kind of way, a wonderfully mixed bag of a song that oddly (or not) made me think of both "Butthole Surfers" and "Marcy's Playground".
Great work, great art King Ropes ie, Dave Hollier / Guitars, Vocals, Noise, Songwriting, Ben Roth / Bass, Guitars, Synths, Piano, Sorcery, Jeff Jensen / Drums, Percussion, Vibe and Sam Hollier / Cello.
-Robb Donker Curtius
While you can consider these two songs great appetizers, the rest of "Idaho" will fully satiate you and have you in an art coma rubbing your belly. Like the Lou Reed meets Bowie-esque sway of "Two Shoes" or the sideways, cascading alt pop Western noir of "Radio Jane" with it's pearly keys and new wave guitars, or the darkly romantic vastness of "Broken Cup" that somehow feels seeded from 70's icons like Van Morrison or Ry Cooder. You might feel cross generational blending of country and bluesy doo wop punk on the wonderfully evocative and beautiful "Ride in Your Car" and swamp blues manifestations on the diaristic mind bender "International Shortwave" that feels like a forlorn indie film within the dirt devils of Oklahoma City. The curiously named "Succulent Thief" is full of whimsy abstractions and experimental places like an amalgam of artists like Flaming Lips and Violent Femmes. Finally, the album's namesake "Idaho" is a track that feels the most avant garde in a kind of alt rock, meets post punk, meets art rock, meets new wave kind of way, a wonderfully mixed bag of a song that oddly (or not) made me think of both "Butthole Surfers" and "Marcy's Playground".
Great work, great art King Ropes ie, Dave Hollier / Guitars, Vocals, Noise, Songwriting, Ben Roth / Bass, Guitars, Synths, Piano, Sorcery, Jeff Jensen / Drums, Percussion, Vibe and Sam Hollier / Cello.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://kingropes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/king.ropes/
https://www.facebook.com/kingropesband
https://kingropesband.com/
King Ropes’ album, Idaho, is soaked in “The Spirit of The West”. Whatever that means. It’s not The West of tourism pamphlets, fly fishing, or cowboys riding into the sunset. Riffing on the idea of Idaho as a kind of misunderstood underdog, the band is more interested in evoking a world both remarkably gorgeous and harshly unforgiving. The band is carving out a sound for itself that reflects modern life in The American West — evoking the bewildering complexity and contradictions, the massive expanses, mythology and realities, mind blowing beauty and heartbreaking hardships. Boom and Bust. The Mountain West. The American West— it’s where we’re from and a huge part of who we are.
So it’s fitting that King Ropes’ music is full of open spaces and jagged edges. Guitars scrape and whine. Amps rumble. Rickety pianos rattle in and out of tune. Like the West, nothing is too refined. At the center of it all is Dave Hollier, a gifted songwriter at the top of his game; with his odd quivering voice, surveying a land that’s a solar system unto itself, an impossible collection of distances and dreams. “We’re from and of and about the West and the Western experience,” says Hollier. “I feel akin to bands like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, Queens of the Stoneage, not necessarily sonically, but those bands are from weird middle-of-nowhere-in-the-West places and represent that experience in some way. I feel like our songs—even if they’re not really explicitly about living here—are informed by that for sure.”
So it’s fitting that King Ropes’ music is full of open spaces and jagged edges. Guitars scrape and whine. Amps rumble. Rickety pianos rattle in and out of tune. Like the West, nothing is too refined. At the center of it all is Dave Hollier, a gifted songwriter at the top of his game; with his odd quivering voice, surveying a land that’s a solar system unto itself, an impossible collection of distances and dreams. “We’re from and of and about the West and the Western experience,” says Hollier. “I feel akin to bands like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, Queens of the Stoneage, not necessarily sonically, but those bands are from weird middle-of-nowhere-in-the-West places and represent that experience in some way. I feel like our songs—even if they’re not really explicitly about living here—are informed by that for sure.”
King Ropes, 6th studio album "Idaho", alt rock, indie rock, blues rock, avant garde, garden rock, country, Western pop noir, post punk, 70's music, 90's music, songwriter Dave Hollier, Bozeman Montana,
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