Hex City
Dark, brooding, guitar and bass heavy, light, melodic and powerful. All describe this band’s new album Hex City, due on May 31st and available to pre-order now.
King Voodoo have been telling us to #bemorevoodoo for a while now, bringing out new songs on a regular basis with regular interaction on social channels even through the wretched covid. So it is with great anticipation that we can now look forward to a whole 10 track album, Hex City, from the Kings of Voodoo themselves.
The album kicks off in style with single ‘Believe in You’, an upbeat and thumping way to start, drawing us in by telling us we are not alone in fighting with daily life, help is at hand. We can stand up and be proud of ourselves and it’s a great way to introduce us to what we can expect from the next nine songs on the album. The melodies get going from the off, Ian Johnson’s vocals wrapping around Jamie Suffield’s lead really well and it’s not long before Ian’s guitar is forefront, driving the song along.
‘Whiskey Drive’ has a real Sabbath style opening riff to it which underlies the whole song throughout, but
again the melodies add that extra layer and Ian really knows his chops to deliver another great solo
when it matters.
You can really feel a maturity developing within this band as they grab track three, ‘Sleep’, by the horns
and throw everything at it, in a balanced way. A call of defiance as their press pack describes it, there’s
the heavy riff, superb harmony and great guitar underpinned by the excellent back line, bass and drums
and with the tempo dropping for the outro that just completes my favourite track on the album. Indeed it
is a song of adversity.
The tempo largely remains mellow for the next couple of songs, ‘Left Alone’ being a great candidate for a
single with its catchy melody and ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ largely an acoustic track with Ian’s electric solo
breaking through at the end. A song reflecting on the past but looking to a brighter future.
The heavy guitar riff returns for ‘Not Your Enemy’, reminding us that time is running out, I want to do my
thing, I want space to breath. A hard rocker from start to finish. And what better way to do your own thing than by having a party? With track seven ‘Time To Party’ we can brush away the bills and the resulting treadmill and have a good time. A pulsating up beat song full of guitar and drums, just the thing you need to let your hair down.
‘Little Voodoo’ is what King Voodoo are all about, this is their tune, their anthem to get us to bemorevoodoo. Plenty of vocal harmonies here wrapped around a pounding base heavy beat.
The last couple of songs are allowed to spread their wings a little, coming in at the five and six minute
mark respectively. ‘Sweet Loneliness’ walks us through the lowest of the low times until we find a way out
with the support of others. ‘Sins Of Diablo’ the final song, brings together all that has gone before, both
lyrically and musically and is a great way for King Voodoo to show off just how far they have come in
their journey as a band. The heavy side, the light side, the melodic and powerful and the wonderful
Spanish guitar outro that leaves us just wanting to play the album again.
Ian, Jamie, Joshua Carvell (bass) and Graham Bennett (drums) can be justifiably proud of this album, it
has twists and turns, light and shade and will please any rocker who likes the lyrics as much as the
music. They’ve stamped their mark on the scene with this album and with their already popular voodoo
merchandise and fantastic live shows, 2023 is going to be a great year for them.
Now is most definitely the time to #bemorevoodoo.
Words: Russ4Rock
