From the beginning, King Krule has occupied a space all to his own. Archy Marshall began releasing music under the moniker over a decade ago and the journey his moody take on punk has taken over the course of his discography has been mesmerizing, to say the least. His approach to music makes the mundane sound enticing and almost desired as he balances blaring horn sections and cartoonish vocals with a gentle ambiance. This approach reaches a new level of minimality on Space Heavy, the latest King Krule LP. This latest chapter has the artist deconstructing a sound he invented to build a sonic palette that enjoys the slow-burning nature of traditional ambient music as much as it enjoys injecting soft rock guitar chords into its ambient tropes. For just around 45 minutes, King Krule presents only what he feels is needed to express his current state of mind, creating a calming set of songs that weaves through silence to redefine balladry.
The album plays like field recordings from a world not yet discovered, leaving Marshall to frolic in the vast openness that drives the LP. The title Space Heavy is directly lifted from the sonic direction of these songs, putting as much emphasis on the moments in between the notes as the notes themselves. Marshall is in no rush on this latest set of songs, he allows his songwriting to fester under a lush soundscape made up of spacious guitars, spontaneous horn melodies, and sparse moments of dense poetry. These songs are structured to use the intensity of silence to their advantage, making the tracklist bleed together at moments but still using every second to push these songs forward. Consistency is key in the sonic narrative of the album, although there are subtle additions that keep these arrangements from sounding too identical.
The sweeping strings on the dreary “When Vanishing” elevate the mood only slightly, keeping the tone of the track intact while adding a little whimsy. “Seagirl” not only brings in guest vocalist Raveena to add an angelic touch to the composition but features a neck-breaking drum pattern that adds a new layer of depth to the standout song. Marshall isn’t trying to show off with this new LP instead he looked to bring his vision to life. Space Heavy attempts to make music out of a thick stillness, adjusting that stillness with hints of King Krule tropes only to emphasize its hushed nature.
Lyrically, the album is as spacious as its instrumentals. Marshall penned words seemingly inspired by the spaces of silence he created for Space Heavy. Krule’s lyrics have always come from a more personal space and are usually presented with a vibrant vagueness that always gave the music its sleek mysteriousness. This time around, his lyrics feel more impactful than ever as they are delivered through muddy melodies and, much like the arrangements, play on minimalism. His words cut through the fogginess of the album with ease and anchor these cosmic displays of musicianship to reality through their longing. “Tortoise of Independency” personifies the loneliness of longing while “If Only It Was Warmth” takes that same sensation of longing and squeezes a painful poem out of it. Marshall’s words take many shapes on Space Heavy with a lingering isolation to string them all together.
Space Heavy is far from a return to form for King Krule and more of a reintroduction to a sound we all thought we knew inside and out. Archy Marshall took the world he created with King Krule and deconstructed his entire process, leaving behind small pieces of the musician we once knew and implementing them into a much darker sound. These 15 songs welcome us to a new side of King Krule, one that finds beauty in lingering silence and is intrigued to explore every corner of it. Melancholy guitar sections are greeted with colorful horns that come together to act as a soapbox for Marshall to share his intimate poetry, all reveling in the moments between the music that add just as much depth to Space Heavy as the music itself does. Ambient yet dense, Space Heavy is an album that requires multiple listens to fully grasp, with each listen revealing a new layer of abstract rock that makes the album such a bold and enticing sonic step for Archy Marshall.
