If you’ve been missing the delirious garage blues of the White Stripes and the Black Keys and have also been pining for Pixies-style eccentricity, Gregory Richard’s King Laugh is the album your heart has been crying out for. Richard makes great use of the blues’ specific structure to carve out a space for his own weird self between the notes and chord changes. The band’s tremendous energy brings the songs into a primal frenzy of noise that simultaneously reach for the heavens and the gut.
Richard shines on the slower pieces as well. “She Plays the Part” and “A Heart That Roams” call to mind 50s crooners like Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison. Richard’s genuine affection for early rock and the music that inspired it gives these songs a refreshing take. While many artists would pursue this angle ironically or with a fetish for authenticity, for Richard this just seems like the way he expresses himself best. For me, at least, these songs takes me to a time when music like this was exciting and rebellious rather than a quaint novelty.
Gregory Richard — Instagram, Bandcamp
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