King’s X Enter The Studio To Begin Recording New Album


King’s X have entered Blacksound Studio in Pasadena, California with producer Michael Parnin to begin tracking their first new album in 10 years. The album is releasing later this year via Golden Robot Records. Parnin is acclaimed for his work with a varied range of artists, from Rage Against the Machine and Missy Elliott to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Barbara Streisand.Continue reading


King’s X Hit Record “Dogman” Turns 25 Years Old


The early-to-mid 1990s was a wild time for heavy music. With the Seattle bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana blowing up and killing off a lot of hair metal bands, and Metallica and Pantera dominating, and death and black metal gaining steam and mainstream success, other kinds of rock bands struggled to cut through. King’s X already had four albums out by the time Dogman (Atlantic) landed in shops. Their heavy rock flirted with metal, but really they have always bucked trends and classifications. Interpreting their influences and their bare lyrics full of religious symbolism and metaphors have earned them a legion of fans and lengthy career worthy of respect. Continue reading


King’s X Signs New Record Deal, New Album out Next Year


King’s X has announced a new record deal with Golden Robot Records, to release their new album, expected in 2019. The new KX album will be the follow up to 2008’s XV. The band just finished a brief tour of the USA. Continue reading


The Jelly Jam – Profit


The Jelly Jam profit ghostcultmag

With the likes of Dream Theater’s John Myung and Ty Tabor of King’s X in their ranks (alongside Winger’s Rod Morgenstien), one would expect The Jelly Jam to be an ambitious and challenging progressive band, with a wide range of influences in their arsenal. In contrast, over their lifespan, their sound has been a much more direct, song based affair; and latest album Profit (Mascot).

With a plethora of ambitious works and journeys under their belt, Profit still shows them flexing their impressive creative muscles and offering virtuoso performances, but in a more refined and concise manner. This is more straight-forward grunge infused rock with some shades of AOR and the like, for a more gritty but no less immediate hard rock sound. Album opener ‘Care’ is a particularly heavier moment to kick of proceedings and provides an immediately anthemic chorus, preceding the softer, acoustic ‘Stain On The Sun’, before picking pace again.

Herein lies the album’s problem, of an undefined sound which seems to try and encompass too many tones and paces without flowing all too well. Immediately following one of the album’s heavier points with a complete contrast proves somewhat jarring in a manner such rock shouldn’t do. Fortunately the strength of the songs alone, whilst not groundbreaking by any stretch, do hold up strong enough to return to on numerous occasions.

Those unfamiliar with the band before hand may have expected wildly different when noting the personnel involved, but The Jelly Jam are a chance to prove that these guys are not just one trick ponies and can do short, sharp and catchy just as well as sprawling, complex epics. It does still need some refining in their sound to feel truly wholesome; but they have certainly succeeded in making a straight forward, fun album; and that is most definitely the mission.

6.0/10

CHRIS TIPPELL

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