Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Controversy aside, of which there is arguably plenty, the debut album from Michigan’s King 810 is a monster, a Metal python waking up in a spring loaded battering ram with the biggest headache possible and an attitude problem to match.

The easily shocked should turn away and possibly ignore the fact that Memoirs of A Murderer has been released, they should pay no attention to the pulse of disaffected America, disaffection that threatens at times to make it into the news in much the same way that disaffection gets ignored in all the countries in the world and they should certainly not entertain listening to the news just in case that too shocks them. For the rest, those that take an interest in the dark growl that haunts our dreams the sound that comes out of this Michigan band is so raw that it hurts, the controversy that sidles alongside the band is a by-product of pain, neglect and an almost psyche separation of the world we live in and whilst it would be easy and in some cases right to condone the sentiment, the music is gripping, intelligent and as powerful as a tornado ripping through the heartlands of the American mid-west.

What King 810 have managed to do, is to open the way for American Metal to take on the likes of their Nordic counterparts in the open arena of the genre. Like bands such as Sacred Reich, who also was said to court controversy when they released The American Way, King 810 have taken the fight to the shores of the burgeoning and overwhelmingly superb Nordic Empire and taken the music combat up not just several notches but using a new bigger stick.

Image is what it is, and there is no hiding from that with Memoirs of A Murderer. The music supplied by the band is one of looming terror, the darkness that resides in the deep recess of all, the residue of a long reaping battle and with songs such as Murder Murder Murder, the explosive Fat Around The Heart, Boogeymen, Devil Don’t Cry and the superb Write About Us, of which is one of the stand out tracks of the year in the Metal genre so far, King 810 and with tremendous dedication from producer Josh Schroeder, have found a new way to worry some, thrill others and pounce like a rabid panther on those sitting on the fence.

Memoirs of A Murderer is something to write home about.

Ian D. Hall