#gg king

[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.

[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  

[reasontowhine]

The John and John Show One John Only 2/10/2020

Keith (Lair) Matic - I Really Want To Stay (Lost In Rome)

Persian Rugs - St. Peter’s Infirmary

The Reactions - Happy

The Replacements - Can’t Hardly Wait (The Tim Version)

New Salem Witch Hunters - Goodbye/It’s Time/To Die

The Records - Starry Eyes

Quazi Modo - Feel

Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Time

~Metrosquad - Tellin’ Lies~

Mirrors - She Smiled Wild

GG King - Another Dimension

Piccadilly Circus - Till I Get To The Top

MC5 - Looking At You

Great Plains - Hamburger Boy

Wreckless Eric - Reconnez Cherie

The Pictorian Skiffuls - In A While

V-3 - Bristol Girl

The Missed - I Wanna Know

Lucky Pierre - Automatic

~Gem - Blow Daddy-O~

[dornanmells]

[dustedmagazine]

Predator — Spiral Unfolds (Total Punk)

Spiral Unfolds (teaser) by Predator

“Dots” flares up like a blow torch, its one-two beat punching in a frenzy, the guitar setting off scrambled bleats of angst, everything pushed as fast as it will go and in danger of flying apart, except for the vocals when they come, which are chant-shouted in a ritual way drained of emotion, lock-stepped and disciplined. Spiral Unfolds, the second album from Atlanta’s Predator, rockets over deep pockets of unease; the lyrics, when you can decipher them, are the kind of verses that made you wonder whether Jay Reatard was okay (he was not), obsessed with death, rot and failure. Predator is a more militant cousin of G.G. King’s solo project, bringing together the one-time Carbonas frontman, Nag’s Brannon Greene and at least a couple of members from the eponymous band, notably Ryan Bell, King’s bass player.

Consider the brief, incendiary “Cortex,” which opens the disc, a frenetic blast of blur-speed strumming, framing a narrative of confusion, angst and anatomy (“Neck! Skull! Cortex!). “Howl,” later on, pulses with agitated bass drama, guitars splintering in whirling spirals, then clamping down in palm muted propulsion. “A privilege…to witness…my existence” barks Greene, his voice uninflected and staccato as the instruments swell beneath him like a large animal’s muscles. A song named “Guided by the Void” probably doesn’t have anything to do with Pollard’s band, though both are punctuated by giant power chords; the drums gallop forward heedlessly, like a wild horse spooked by fire, the crash of guitars is ominous and full of threat. Greene’s yell near the end sounds like a man falling off a cliff into a river of fire. And yet, intense and visceral as these cuts are, “Ultraviolet,” is better, full of stinging tunefulness and rushing, adrenalized animal spirits.

Spiral Unfolds is nowhere near as stylistically varied as King’s latest solo record. The songs mostly match in tempo and aggression, and a relentless discipline pares them back to elemental fury. “I couldn’t care less/about your success,” intones Greene in the blistering “Confessional,” practicing the kind of battering, pummeling alienation that has electrified punk rock since the late 1970s. There’s nothing complicated about this record, but it rips.  

Jennifer Kelly

[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