About

Man Alive! is the fourth studio album by English singer-songwriter Archy Marshall, and his third album under the stage name King Krule. The album was released on 21 February 2020 through True Panther Sounds, XL Recordings, and Matador Records. – Wiki

Man Alive! is arranged like a harrowing trek out of a hectic locale. Up front, there are coarse, pithy tunes about disorder at home and abroad. “Cellular” addresses the disorienting experience of being plugged into world news but unable to do anything about it. “There’s a massacre / Across the ocean / I can see it in the palm of my hands,” Krule sings. Ignoring the nightly news doesn’t bring peace: “I left her dying / She was still crying / And now she’s lying in my head.” “Supermarché” speaks of blood, battlefields, and child soldiers; “Comet Face” is a gauntlet of late-night encounters with partiers, drinks, and drugs. The lyrics paint abstract, discomfiting scenes. The music zips between post-punk and sludge. When I endeavor to call the growling “Stoned Again” a grunge song, Marshall details the ups and downs in his relationship with the electric guitar, which he’s played for 17 of his 25 years on Earth. “As an instrument, it got me money, it got me love, and it got me hatred.” Where guitars gave 6 Feet its breezy, psychedelic feel and played the field on The Ooz, beefing up atmospherics rather than taking center stage, they’re out front for Man Alive!, giving “Alone, Omen 3” its laconic slacker-rock mood and “Comet Face” its punk-rock edge. ­The Vulture