The King Blues – Under The Fog

It’s rare to find a band that manage to pay lip service to the music of the past while successfully updating it, even more so when they are able to use familiar aspects of a particular genre to bring it to a new audience. Rejoice, then, because London’s King Blues have produced a ska-reggae album so accomplished that it is at once modern and enjoyable as it is traditional and important.

On one hand, ‘Under The Fog’ can be taken as a good-time ska album, packed with gentle, lilting melodies and Itch‘s distinctive London vocals. ‘Mr Music Man’, the tune cheekily subtitled by a ukulele (!) and a smooth pace that seems genetically modified to make the head nod slowly up and down, is the perfect soundtrack to any hot summer’s day as is “Chimp in a Three Piece Suit”; two brilliantly calm songs that are perfect examples of the marriage of reggae and ska. Music like this resists intense cross-examination because it’s designed to slide into your brain easily, and The King Blues succeed in making their tunes catchy without being annoying or, pun not intended, hackneyed.

But then it sinks in that “Under The Fog” is no simple relaxation album along the lines of a Chris Murray number – “Come Fi Di Youth” is an impassioned treatise against the sickening tactics of the BNP in targeting the nation’s youngsters while “Taking Over” outlines the uphill struggle for acceptance of non-mainstream ideals in today’s politics. This is protest music at it’s most vital and basic – at a recent gig in London Itch had the whole crowd singing his inherently political lyrics back at him, a perfect example of what might be termed the first stage of political mobilisation for a lot of people – because it talks about issues that matter right now. This is no case of “Fuck Blair” band-wagon hopping, but an attempt to unify everyone dissatisfied with the current state of England (“The Sound of Revolt”) and stand up and ask what in the name of fuck our leaders are doing (“Duck and Cover”).

The King Blues aren’t treading new music ground, but they’re treading in noble footsteps in more way than one. Just as you could light up, put “Under The Fog” on as the fog descends and have a perfectly enjoyable evening, could you use it as a document detailing the dilemmas and confusion involved in growing up in England today. Put alongside Sonic Boom Six‘s “The Ruff Guide to Genre Terrorism” it works fantastically at providing a slice of life that’s recognisable enough to call together everyone fed up of being spoken for. Excitingly necessary.