Since hitting the South Wales Music scene in 2018, the five piece heavy metal band have made an awful lot of noise up and down the length and breadth of the ÜK, culminating in an appearance in Hard Rock Hell in Sheffield in 2019. Then, with everything else that screwed up a lot of bands’ momentum, 2020 and 2021 took them into the writing phase for this first album.
Like the novel of the same name by John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes. This whole album is without doubt heavy metal in origin – and, like the kraken, it’s BLOODY HUGE!
The eight original tracks (with two remixes of ‘Chaos Engine’ and ‘Castle of Bone’ as bonus tracks), kick off with ‘Devils Night’, and Karl Meyer’s bass lines that will have your guts turning somersaults they are that powerful. Add into the mix the hammering that Lee Mears gives his kit and you have an idea of the power and depth of the rhythm section of the Kraken. To hear it live you will need industrial strength ear defenders if you’re anywhere near the stage.
However, it is not just about the bass lines and power, there is subtlety in some of the lightening fast riffage that Adam Healey burns across his fretboard, more than ably supported on rhythm guitar by Pete Rose.
I have seen the Kraken many times in many of my local venues and have always been impressed with the vocal performances of Mark Donoghue, but the smaller venues always struggled to get the mix right and the vocals frequently “got lost” in the huge musical sound of the rest of the band. Lets face it: metal bands are always about everything being louder than everything else and all at 11!
This is not the case with this album. It has been masterfully mixed by Romesh Dodangoda (known for his work with fellow Welshmen Bullet for My Valentine and Florence Black, to name a couple). The vocals sit perfectly on top of the mix and every nuance of each band member has its own space in the mix. If I get the chance to listen to an album and Romesh has mixed it, I know I’m generally going to like the mix! This gives the audience a chance to interpret the very cleverly written lyrical content of the songs. After all, if you don’t want people to hear the lyrics you write then just do instrumentals, not muddy them in the song mix!
There is no time to take a breath as one track quickly passes onto the next and each one is complementary to its predecessor. There are vocals of huge power and not insignificant range as well as the more typical growls associated with heavy metal. There is not one member of the band who does not have their moment in the sunlight of the music. The guitar sounds cry and scream from both protagonists but Adam Healey just blows my mind with his playing, it is exceptional.
Just in case you were wondering what the title means, it is Roman Numerals for 1180, which is apparently the year that the Kraken sighting was first recorded by King Sverre of Norway, (and not, as I thought, Mark Donoghue’s birthday!)
This album has to be listened to on a decent speaker to really appreciate the mix. I first tried it on a set of Bluetooth headphones but on my Bose speaker system it is immense. Phenomenal. Just Phenomenal.
- ‘MCLXXX’ is released on Friday 27 January. You can get your copy HERE.
- King Kraken’s album launch show at the Redhouse Cymru in Merthyr Tydfil on Saturday 28 January is SOLD OUT.
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