A new band featuring guitarist David Hill and vocalist Tony Forde from goregrinders The Day Everything Became Nothing (the latter also singing for Blood Duster), King are a far cry from their members’ other musical outlets.
Their modern epic metal, with touches of black metal and some folk overtones, is very clean, very professional, quite heavy and reasonably accessible, with hints of melody despite being fairly atonal at times.
Their debut is akin to a slightly heavier (and less heavy metal) Amon Amarth combined with a bit of Satyricon’s more percussive and less ‘hooky’ 00s output. Needless to say, despite King’s Australian nationality there is also a strong Scandic vibe, the icy mountains on the cover and songtitles such as Black North and Winter Sons underlining this aesthetic. The performances and production can’t be faulted, but Reclaim The Darkness is also highly generic and the band really need to inject some character or eccentricity next time around to stand out from the crowd.
