Idle No More

King Khan And The Shrines
Merge Records
General | Sep 2013

Reviews

Wallace Brontoon
Reviewed 2013-09-21
King Khan & the Shrines
Idle No More

Crazy soul garage. One half of the fantastic weirdo-garage duo "King Khan & BBQ Show", King Khan (nee Arish Ahmad Khan, born in Canada, but now living in Germany) has perhaps the more straightahead soul, frat-rock and psyche sides of garage than his partner, Mark Sultan. This album pays tribute in its title to a indigenous-rights campaign to protect wildlands in Canada, and is awesome high-energy soul/funk/garage all throughout.

Pick any track. They're all great. (FCC on 2)

1 (3:13) *** Funky bright guitars in a swirly soul sound, moments middle-easternish psychedelic sounds, midtempo and cool. A minute left, nice retro horn section joins in!
2 (3:04) *** [FCC - "shit hits the fan"] Loose frat-rock stomper opening, tambourines are shaking, and horns blaring. Nice mid-tempo driving singalong.
3 (3:02) **** Uptempo with driving drums and a cool '60s string section. Weirdo shaker sounds, but wow, is the chorus saccharine in a completely great way. Warped-as-hell guitar solo with a minute left. "Bah, bah bah bah..."
4 (3:46) ***** Wow, pure soul saxes and bass start this out. You think it's Stax Records. But the voice is the higher, garage register. Funky Hammond Organ! The funky soul bass totally works here-- uptempo Otis Reddingesque.
5 (3:05) **** Twinkly and light, xylophones and stuff, horns enter. "Better luck next time..." Simplistic retro-garage fun, hi-speed until a slowdown at 1:30 left, then it revs back up..
6 (4:06) ** Slow. Woozy horns, arpeggios on bass (think Beatles' "Sun King") High and dramatic, cabaret-esque "There is darkness..." vocals, very slinky.
7 (3:46) * Folkier funky bass with female vox, deliberate meter with accents with the horns.
8 (3:15) *** Hollies-esque country-psyche guitar spinning, into a bigger organ-drenched sound, "...bad bad boy...", midtempo party with energetic vox.
9 (3:52) **** Strummy garage with crazy breakneck drums, horns and driving and everything-- (can I say it sounds like Harvey Danger without that sounding like a bad thing?)
10 (2:25) *** Uptempo folky psychey Byrds picking with back-and-forth chorus.
11 (2:58) ** Purply minor horns and hand-clappy, retro soul sounds. "I get paid..."
12 (3:40) * Slow, downbeat with mournful fiddle.

Recent airplay

Bad Boy
moodswingsAug 20, 2017
Born To Die
Stringless BalloonNov 21, 2013
Thorn In Her Pride
MeowNov 19, 2013
Born To Die
Meow After MidnightNov 12, 2013
So Wild
Around The BendNov 09, 2013
Better Luck Next Time, Luckiest Man, Thorn In Her Pride
!!Nov 07, 2013

Charting

2013-09-22 — 2013-11-24
Week EndingAirplays
Nov 24 2
Nov 17 1
Nov 10 3
Nov 3 2
Oct 27 1
Oct 20 1
Oct 13 4
Oct 6 3

Track listing

1. Born To Die
2. Bite My Tongue
3. Thorn In Her Pride
4. Luckiest Man
5. Better Luck Next Time
6. Darkness
7. Pray For Lil
8. Bad Boy
9. So Wild
10. Yes I Can't
11. I Got Made
12. Of Madness I Dream