According to the press release accompanying this disc, Kingporterstomp are currently doing the music for a new play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. This seems very appropriate, given how theatrical the sounds on display here are. You almost expect them to bow at the end.
Things get off to a deceptively calm start at the beginning, just like they do with all the best plays. Each instrument gets its own little moment in the sun, its own character introduction, if you will, so we get time to get to know each other and also relate.
From this false sense of security, though, the sonic sand swiftly slips from between our feet. These guys are angry about the state of the world and not afraid to show it. Lyrical barbs and serrated riffs fire out freely from the speakers here; joyously so.
The influences of funk and hip hop are very much to the fore here. The single has the sharp, bass-fuelled attitude and backbone of the former and the raw lyrical honesty from the latter and, when these two combine, you get the full-frontal attack of Kingporterstomp.
One begins, very quickly, to wonder if and how they’ll be able to sustain this kind of momentum. The trick is, just as you start to wonder this, the song ends. Would that more artists these days would learn this same trick.