On “Young Blood”, the 26-year-old genius charges patinated blues rock with topical heartache.
He’s only 26 years old, but he’s long been a veteran. Marcus King started playing the guitar at the age of three. It quickly became clear that he would become a musician: he practiced until his fingers bled. He barely managed to graduate from compulsory school in South Carolina, and then he went on tour straight away. Three famous albums with his Marcus King Band established his reputation as a new child prodigy between blues, southern rock and soul.
In 2020, he released his Grammy-nominated solo debut, El Dorado. Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys helped him on the track of soul. Now, two years later, “Young Blood” is available, a collection of songs that seem like self-imposed exorcism. Although Auerbach sat behind the mixing desk again and helped shape many songs as co-author, the choice sounds radically rougher. At its core, King plays with a trio that is occasionally bolstered by mellotron and guitar sound donations from Auerbach.
This sounds a lot like the blues trios of the late ’60s and early ’70s. So after Cream and Free, sometimes also after the early Steve Miller band. The focus is on King’s brute-tender guitar playing, to which the song structures obediently subordinate themselves. As a guitarist, King constantly switches between poisonous grooves and electrifying solos.
On “Aim High” his game comes close to one Jimi Hendrix. Another atout is that wondrous, hoarse voice that names the demons King has suffered from over the past few years: alcohol and drug abuse, lovesickness and depression. The artist’s woeful condition makes these sounds, which some like to dismiss as retro, red hot. At one point, King even thought the recordings were his epitaph: “I wanted to give hope to people who are in a similar situation, even though I thought it was too late for me,” he said in a recent interview. In the meantime, you no longer have to worry about the youngster: a smart lady takes care of the hero who almost fell. Musically, you never had to worry about him anyway.
Marcus King: „Young Blood“, Label: Universal.
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