![]() ![]() The one hard rock track, Last Damn Night, doesn’t actually suit her band, whose nimble keyboard player adds plenty of country-soul sparkle elsewhere. You feel for her poor bassist, felt up by King and bullied into showing his abs. You could blame the refreshments, but tonight, King probably flips the table on men a little too violently. The likes of Under the Influence (slinky R&B, about a love addiction) and Song of Sorrow or Kocaine Karolina (banjo-led, full of existential defeat) offer depths as well as ease of access. It’s a relief to find that her vulnerability is as convincing as her strength, even if the men from the record company talk loudly all the way through her ballads. When the song went to the top of the US Billboard alternative chart last month, it was only the second track by a woman to do so in 20 years (the last girl to lead? Lorde).Ī lot of King’s debut album, only released in the UK a couple of weeks ago, bears the mark of established hit-makers (Jeff Bhasker, Eg White, Mark Ronson) but thankfully, not always at the expense of King’s own chutzpah. The video, currently with more than 6m YouTube views, is full of male totty being put through its paces by King’s heartless vixen. The ace in her pack is a stonking single, Ex’s & Oh’s which paints King – the daughter of model-turned-doula London King (who raised her) and Saturday Night Live comedian Rob Schneider (who didn’t) – as a man-eater. Roots tunes like Where the Devil Don’t Go have been played in rural dives since the year dot – although in America’s heartland they probably don’t usually embrace emancipation and Satan with such enthusiasm. Bleached blonde, covered in tattoos and swearing like a trooper, King has a brace of tough-girl songs like Good to Be a Man – a playful lament that pillories the male sex (“get stuck in a ditch like your woman knew you would”, is one good line). ![]() The 26-year-old King presents as a 1950s pin-up gone feral, her raspy Wanda Jackson holler steeped in every genre of vintage Americana – sassy rock’n’roll, vampy R&B, country sadness and a little blues. Much of King’s material bears the mark of established hit-makers but not always at the expense of her own chutzpah
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