Buzzin Music

King Creosote – Flick The Vs – album review

King Creosote

King Creosote, aka Kenny Anderson, head of the Fence Collective, has returned to Domino for the release of his new album Flick The Vs, out on April 20th.

The new LP sees King Creosote, as the album title suggests, in a more anarchic mood than on previous records, which dealt in a kind of cheery folk sing-along, despite their recurring themes of angst and bitterness.

King Creosote has toughened up, so to speak, and now the accompaniment to his fragile voice – like a nervous, Scottish Antony Hegarty – are urgent drums and unruly experimentation. The very opening to the album’s lead track, ‘No One Had It Better’ sets up what Flick The Vs has in store. There are synths and an effect-laden vocal, followed by frustratingly timeless drums and King Creosote’s earnest falsetto.

This rebellion against the ho-hum singer-songwriter pop expectations that accompany him is best summarised by ‘Camels Swapped For Wives’, on which Anderson sings ‘I don’t give a fuck about that’.

It is a strange opening, and one inwhich King Creosote sets his stall. He is starting afresh on Flick The Vs and he demands to be taken seriously. And it’s a premise that comes off for a while. It is impossible not to admire his spitting, disgusted lyricism on ‘Camels Swapped For Wives’, and even when things turn a bit sentimental by track five ‘Fell An Ox’, you accept it as if it were coming from someone who knows.

Elsewhere, ‘Coast On By’, returns to Kind Creosote’s affection for pop, sounding, if it had different lyrics, like any one-hit-wonder indie-pop group’s single.  ‘Nothing Rings True’ is a sincere, shining piece of acoustic music, followed by a piece of soft, jazzy romance on ‘Curtain Craft’.

King Creosote, you begin to think, is getting all sentimental again, especially after the fast-paced ‘Rims’ is interrupted by a heart-wrenching breakdown for the stark chorus line ‘I am the worst’. The album closer ‘Saw Circular Prowess’ indulges in a piece of epic piano-rock, in a final attempt to flick the Vs again, or to at least stick out the tongue, but really the album has slipped away from the exciting unruliness of the opening.

King Creosote does pop really well. But when he dared to not ‘give a fuck’, he really got exciting, and it is this that carries Flick The Vs.

King Creosote is the head of Fence Collective, and from April 17th-19th he will curate Homegame, a festival for the acts from this Fife-based group.

King Creosote will tour the following places in the UK this Spring/Summer

20/05 : Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK
21/05 : Gala Theatre, Durham, UK
23/05 : The GRV, Edinburgh, UK
24/05 : The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, UK
26/05 : Iron Works, Inverness, UK
29/05 : The Canteen, Barrow, UK
30/05 : The Studio, Hartepool, UK
01/06 : 100 Club, London, UK
01/06 : 100 Club, London, UK
02/06 : 100 Club, London, UK
03/06 : Duke Of York’s Picturehouse, Brighton, UK
04/06 : The Firestation, Windsor, UK
05/06 :The Globe, Cardiff, UK
06/06: South Street Arts Centre, Reading, UK
07/06 : The Musician, Leicester, UK
08/06 : The Glee Club, Birmingham, UK
09/06 : The Ruby Lounge, Manchester, UK
10/06 : Fibbers, York, UK
13/06 : The Garage, Glasgow, UK
26/06 : Birnam Arts Centre, Perth, UK
27/06 : Outsider Festival, Inverness-shire, UK