“Empty Vessels” and “New Builds” percolate with intricate electronic music, anticipating the masterful conclusion of the album that ranks in Marshall’s top five best tracks so far in his career. Unfortunately, like many other songs on this album, the track title is the most interesting part. Marshall half raps, half speaks incoherent verses about dogs and specificity, leaving the listener deeply confused. The best example of this genre would be the eccentric montage group The Avalanches’ 2004 hit “Frontier Psychiatrist,” better known as the song consisting of strange audio clips from the ’50s, horse sounds, and the repetition of the line “that boy needs therapy.” Marshall’s homage features a British standup comedian making sexual innuendos, overlaid with Marshall’s distorted voice sounding as if he inhaled a five-year-old’s birthday party’s worth of balloons. “Sex With Nobody” is in dialogue with music’s equivalent of Dada or the Theater of the Absurd. Similarly, Marshall’s guitar reappears in “Ammi Ammi,” but it fails to reach the depth achieved in “Arise Dear Brother.” Instead, he settles for a middle-of-the-road toking song that British and American teenagers can vibe to as they check for cops in the parking lot behind their munchies destination of choice. Marshall’s successful fusion of jazz, blues, and soul motifs that made him a prodigy in his work as King Krule appear again in “Arise Dear Brother,” where brass horns and a snare drum add depth to the chugging electronic beat. Marshall also sacrifices some of the complex lyrics that have been featured in his spoken word songs as King Krule, such as “Cementality,” by making “Swell” his boldest foray into rapping. The biggest weakness of Marshall’s album is his overuse of the synthesizer and electronic background music, unaccompanied by his traditional blues guitar. In “Swell,” the opening lyrics of the song and the album are simply Marshall muttering “a new place to drown” followed by his brother “singing” the same line with better diction the synthesizer in the background builds tension. As with the albums of Moby or Linkin Park, the opening track serves more as a prelude with no connecting beginning perhaps it is also an interlude between Marshall’s previous persona and his current one. The album begins with the mostly instrumental track “Any God of Yours,” immediately revealing the abandonment of the guitar riffs and howling that has come to define King Krule’s unique and unsettling sound. Although “A New Place 2 Drown” could have stood on its own as a compelling work of art, it fails to do so due to its over-reliance on electronic background music, mediocre rapping, and admittedly clever track titles. A significant stylistic departure from his previous work, Marshall’s album,“A New Place 2 Drown,” may befuddle or even disappoint King Krule fans. Last December, the 21-year-old British artist formerly known as King Krule released his first album under his own name, Archy Marshall.
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