Album Review

To Kill A King – Cannibals With Cutlery

• 19th Feb 2013

To Kill A King play a form of indie music that has clear folk influences, and is built around the fine lyrics and deep, smooth voice of Ralph Pelleymounter. They produce melodic, well written songs that are full of deep emotion and feature great vocal harmonies. Their style is overtly soothing but always seems to have a hidden depth.

The wonderfully titled Cannibals With Cutlery is TKAK’s debut album and was produced by Jim Abbiss (Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Bombay Bicycle Club). It contains no great musical surprises and I found it to be something of a slow burner. And coming in at 55 minutes long, there is plenty to contemplate amongst its 13 tracks. On a first listen some good songs stood out while others rather faded into each other, and it took a while for me to appreciate the skilful crafting of the melodies and their restrained power.

The album features four of the six tracks from the Word Of Mouth EP, released as a free download last July – although unfortunately this does not include its best track, Howling. Funeral and Rays are both on the album though, and are among its better offerings.

Other stand out tracks on the album are the emotional Choices, where some lovely guitar work is added to vocals that build into lush layers of harmony. Lead single Cold Skin sees Pelleymounter extend his voice and demonstrate a very good range in an upbeat song that turns into something much closer to rock than folk music. Fictional State has a tragic yet compelling feel to it, an acoustic track with some fine vocal work.

Several of the more gentle moments on the album are also rather good. The opening I Work Nights And You Work Days is tender and almost orchestral. Children Who Start Fires features some nice guitar picking and soft vocals that seem to merge into the atmospheric strings. The title track though is rather odd. Cannibals With Cutlery is a thirty second mid album interlude, taken from a song released as part of the Ralph’s Balcony series of videos recorded at Pelleymounter’s London flat. I’m sure there’s a reason why the full track wasn’t included …

This is a decent album that existing fans of To Kill A King or similar folkie/ indie bands will probably love. It doesn’t break into new musical territory but it does show a band who are very good at what they do, and clearly comfortable in continuing to do it. And in Ralph Pelleymounter they have a front man whose voice is ideally suited to the smooth and emotional melodies that they produce so well.

Venue: Cannibals With Cutlery
Support Band: Self released