King's X
XV

There are bands that, after fifteen albums, continue to surprise with their compositional freshness and are consistently ignored. King's X is one of them, yet they continue to be relegated to a cult band without being given the chance to make the big leap into the musical mainstream.

To us fans, honestly, this doesn't bother us; in fact, it makes the band feel even more "ours." What is disappointing is seeing lesser bands succeed, leaving us shrugging with a "who cares, I’ll keep listening to them, and that's more than enough for me." Yes, because are you telling me that a song like "Repeating Myself", included here, wouldn’t make waves if repeatedly played on MTV or the radio?

After this introduction, which you can skip, I want to talk about this album, released this year, marking the Texan band’s significant milestone of their fifteenth album of their career. A prestigious achievement considering that the lineup has remained unchanged since 1988, the year their first album "Out of the Silent Planet" was released. Credit to King's X for never making a misstep in their career, releasing records that are different from each other but always above average, without drops in tone and class. From the hard and progressive of their beginnings to the grunge of the nineties, the psychedelia of albums like "Ear Candy" from 1996 or "Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous" from 2000, up to the rock simplicity of their last two works, "Ogre Tones" from 2005 and this "XV."

Don't be deceived by the dark cover; "XV" is as fresh and poppy (if you’ll allow me the term) as Pinnick, Tabor, and Gaskill have ever produced in their career. The group's characteristics are accentuated to the maximum, so the classic Beatles-like choruses and melodies perfectly blend with the heavy and hard guitars of the never too praised Ty Tabor. Doug Pinnick's vocal performance (an almost sixty-year-old who could give any twenty-year-old on the scene a run for their money both physically and vocally) is, as usual, textbook.

From the modern hard rock of the opening "Pray" to the perfect melody-thrash riff combination of "Rocket Ship," the acoustic "Julie" reminiscent of Tom Petty, the bluesy "Free" to the closing "Go Tell Somebody" that seems to reconnect with their early works, thus closing the circle of an almost perfect album.

Add in two bonus tracks like "Love and Rockets" and the raw blues of "No lie."

Certainly, although it could be, it won’t be the album that changes their career. King's X will continue to play live for the few chosen ones who go to see them, and I recommend it (they should finally come to Italy in the early months of 2009), and they will keep releasing albums like this, which, in my opinion, is the hard rock album of the year and will leave the front pages to the sacred monsters of the movement who, with bland and dutiful albums, sell millions... and this year, there have been many such releases...