#gg king

[statelaughterzine]

RESEARCH REACTOR CORP, GEE TEE, THE GOBS, CHERRY CHEEKS, GG KING. 9/28/23 AT THE EARL.

[statelaughterzine]

ERIK NERVOUS, KEN MUJO, GG KING, WHIPHOUSE...2024

[statelaughterzine]

DUMMY, GG KING, PHILIP FROBOS

2023

[bandcampsnoop]

4/24/25.

Originally released in 2011, State Laughter (Atlanta, Georgia) decided to remaster GG King's "Esoteric Lore" stating, "While the original master is totally classic, this one provides a little more clarity to the originals in the red griminess."

I actually went to State Laughter's site to listen to the pretty cool Blammo/Riboflavin split. Listening to GG King (Atlanta, Georgia) reminds me of the intensity of Ted Leo crossed with classic punk chops - I hear The Replacements and maybe what Green Day might have sounded like had they been more lo-fi and more classic punk. The guitar buzzsaw sound is reminiscent of Wire.

Greg King was a member of Carbonas before making his own group. The original version of "Esoteric Lore" was released by Rob's House Records and Scavenger of Death.

[aktionpak]

Glittering Insects - Silent Dream

This song/album. Makes me feel all kinds of things.

[blob-boi]

There is a cloud in the sky that looks like a pig giving a thumbs up. It took a week to conquer the world, but only a day or two to conquer the heavens.

[thesingingknives]

GG King - “Remain Intact”

[dustedmagazine]

GG King — Remain Intact (Total Punk)

Remain Intact LP by GG KING

GG King has come a long way since he fronted the Carbonas and advanced substantially since his last full-length, Unending Darkness (of which, Doug Mosurock said, “Build your own world, rain on it, mope around, riff hard. There is no more complete of a voice in punk-leaning music right now,” in his year-end for 2015.) Remain Intact retains the fuzzy, drum-rupturing fury of GG King’s earlier work and incorporates roughly the same cast of characters: Ryan Bell on bass, Josh Feigert and Mike Koechlin on guitar (in addition to King himself), Tyler Kinney on drums and cameos from Chris van Etten, Graham Tavel and Andrew Wiggins. The difference is here that he makes the music anthemic. There are strong, memorable tunes under the dissonance here and at least a couple of songs that would be fists-up, lighters-lit, arena-sized bangers in an era that valued such things.

Start right at the beginning with “Remain Intact,” with its bright, clarifying guitar riff, not just the slash and burn punk strum you might expect, but something lighter, prettier, almost new wave in the tone-bending mesh. The chorus, too, is woozy but ear-wormy, slurred and snarled but inescapably tuneful. It is, right off the bat, more song-like than anything on Unending Darkness, which was excellent, but made roughly zero concessions to pop likeability.

“Melt On You” is even better, a ragged romantic ripper about love and death and surrender. It’s framed by big crashing chords and racheting drum play and comes on like a tidal wave, but you could sing the chorus after a single listen, and you’ll hear it in your head before you’ve been listening very long.

Not that King is going soft. “Dekalb County Endless” arises out of a brutal, rupturing explosion of bass; its narrative is yelped and groaned, an endless litany of Atlanta-area place names spat out in desolate contempt. (GG King does not appear to like the farmers’ market.) “Golden Horde Rising” machine gun sprays guitar riffs in every direction as it gallops headlong into the void. “Rising, rising, golden horde rising,” chants King and his band mates in a straightforward act of punk mayhem.

The disc ends in an odd but really kind of mesmerizing way with “Timesick (Doom and Gloom).” Here King talk sings against the woozy thunder of fuzzed out guitar about the nature of time. His observation, which will resonate with anyone who’s ever watched the progress bar in iTunes, is about how dividing the tedium up into ever smaller packages only hastens the race towards death. It’s a startling bit of philosophy from an artist who, so far, has seemed content to punch up the walls.

So, stronger tunes, better songs, deeper thoughts and, really, no major compromises. I’d call it a win. Remain Intact is understating things. GG King is still growing.  

Jennifer Kelly