King Woman: Celestial Blues | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- One of my favourite musical experiences is, without a doubt, the involuntary Patrick Bateman stinkface I pull whenever a reality shifting riff washes over me in an awesome wave and its peal alters a small part of my being. After this sonic cleanse, you retroactively feel your life prior to that point was pure guitar novitiate and that you are now, subsequently blessed. I made that pursed-lips expression so many times during this new King Woman record. So many times it’s a good thing the wind didn’t change or I would remain with a hopelessly dope expression on my already rude head. For those moments to hit fully, you need a deft hand. With said deft hand, an ebb and flow needs to be mastered. Celestial Blues may have called in some biblical boons to aid in King Woman’s cleansing flood.

Eponymous openers whisper through gritted teeth as these nine tracks are trudged into fruition. As soon as Peter Arendorf’s torrential guitar doom devours the mix like that gaping maw of a cataclysmic Pacman, King Woman’s mastermind, Kris Esfandiari, begins moaning her sermon. A fading tail evaporates into the sparse beginnings of Morning Star, a song weighted down by leaden boots it so desperately tries to shed. Shed them it does in tense fashion. The better half of the song is occupied by alternating a forest clearing cymbal carillon and rapid pattering fills, all while one riff drones on in a cogent, strong-armed repetition. The stinkface I mentioned earlier was in full force when Boghz fully hit the first time with an involuntary “Oh, **** yes!” How it's built has you clamouring for something out of reach. The vocal chant that’s exhaled before exploding into some utterly nasty guitar-work and vocals distorted from their intense delivery. It’s a perfect use of dynamics. It’s that perfect, the following two iterations in the same song are as sweet, if not sweeter.

Golgotha’s six minute heft is a well-timed breather on the precipice of Coil: one of the most involved tracks on Celestial Blues. While its compatriots are content to inundate and drown you, Coil strikes at you. Forging ahead with a straight-forward riff, everything tumbles on in verklempt determination. Another six minute slab follows in the form of Entwined. Psychic Wound heralds its unease with blithe melodies flirting with inaudible vocals and then capitalising on our Pavlovian training. What comes after the calm? An all encompassing flood. You know the pattern by this point. Then Paradise Lost refuses to capitulate to this pattern…and it kills me. It spurs me to relisten to the record through from the very beginning though.

King Woman think the sophomore slump is for suckers or, at the very least, something poor sods devoid of astral assistance must suffer. Proffering themes steeped as heavily as Celestial Blues is in religion, could have been cleaner if the vocals weren’t as shoegaze are they were. Hey, that’s my vehement distaste of that bastard genre bleeding through. In reality, to be played in a way that has you holding your breath and anxiously awaiting the next note is a divine experience. When’s the next census and can I have King Woman listed as my religion? 
- Matt Lynch.