Archy Marshall has returned to his King Krule moniker with a bang. Back in August, he shared the groggily jazzy “Czech One,” the first single from a new album, and shortly followed it up with the groovier, more lively “Dum Surfer.” Both songs appeared on the same 7” single, came accompanied by disorienting videos, and featured excellent saxophone solos— which is a lot of similarities for two tracks by one of the most inventive young minds in modern music.
Having now officially announced the full-length follow-up to 2013’s 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, which is entitled The Ooz and arrives next Friday, October 13th, Marshall has let one last track loose before the release. “Half Shark Half Man” effectively ends any chance of this album being relatively uniform in sound, which when considering King Krule’s ability to make any number of genres sound like King Krule, is probably a good thing. It arrives via a video that’s not quite a “music video” per se, just some blurry live footage overlaid with some primitive animation.
After a murky intro featuring some distant chanting, the song kicks off with a snare-led shuffle and a fuzzy guitar strut reminiscent of early Arctic Monkeys. It sounds like grimy, underground ‘60s rock filtered through the lens of post-punk, with Marshall as the word-drunk ringleader. He shepherds us through a few musical changes, including one bolstered by an infectious bassline, and a climactic one in which the beat drops out as a piano takes the reigns.
These switch-ups are key, because while Marshall’s poetry is entrancing (the line “To let this place combust you must refrain from rust” especially stands out), he’s on a fast track, never pausing for much of a refrain or chorus. It’s almost like him and the relentless drums are the foundation, and the rest of the instruments are responsible for forming the song’s aboveground structure on their own.
Preorder The Ooz from True Panther.
