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Friday Full-Length: Kings Destroy, And the Rest Will Surely Perish

Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 20th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

Invariably, the narrative I put to any Kings Destroy release at this point is one of progression, of learning from what they’ve done in the past and pushing themselves to new places in songwriting and style. I’m a fan of the band as artists and as people, but this narrative has the advantage of being true. No two Kings Destroy albums sound the same, which is even more remarkable when you consider the first three of them had the same producer in Sanford Parker (he of Buried at Sea, Corrections House, War Crime Recordings and production work for YOB, the entire city of Chicago, and so on). For a band to have started out with this kind of ambition wouldn’t necessarily be strange. Acts come along all the time who say they want to grow and change over time. Those who manifest it as palpably as the Brooklynite five-piece have since the 2010 arrival of their first single, Old Yeller/Medusa (review here), are significantly more rare. For a thankfully short period of time, this site had a label wing called The Maple ForumKings Destroy‘s eight-track/44-minute debut full-length, And the Rest Will Surely Perish, was one of the very few releases that came out under that banner.

At the time, the band was comprised of vocalist Steve Murphy, guitarists Carl Porcaro and Chris Skowronski, bassist Ed Bocchino and drummer Rob Sefcik. They’d played together in various guises over the years, but PorcaroSkowronski and Murphy were probably most known for their contributions to New York hardcore in bands like Killing Time and Uppercut, while Sefcik served in Electric Frankenstein and the sludgy Begotten. I have no problem admitting my ignorance when it comes to the history and folklore of NYHC. It’s just not my scene. But when Kings Destroy reached out about that initial 7″ and followed it with And the Rest Will Surely Perish, it seemed clear to me their hearts were in what they were doing, and the songs and groove were there. I was on board.

It’s been a while since I’ve put the record on. Earlier this year, they released their fourth LP in Fantasma Nera (review here) on Svart Records, and that’s taken precedence. What stands out from And the Rest Will Surely Perish now is the tone, and the level of detail. I visited the studio in Hoboken, briefly, while they were working on the album, and if I knew then what I know today about a recording process, I might ask the good Mr. Parker and the guitarists how the hell they managed to conjure that tone. In “Planet XXY” it has all the crunch and impact of the best of New York noise rock, but thickened all the more by Bocchino‘s basslines, comes across as fluid in a rolling groove set forth by Sefcik‘s drums. The opening salvo of “The Mountie,”kings destroy and the rest will surely perish “Dusty Mummy” and “The Whittler” boasts some of the best and most memorable songcraft on the album, but listening back, the level of detail gives little hints at the progression of sound the band would soon enough undertake. Vocal layering in “Dusty Mummy,” the echoing swirl of guitar late in “The Mountie,” a quick flourish of harmony in the last lines of “The Whittler”; amid the forward-facing riffs and grooves and the overarching doomed stylization, these subtleties and others that emerge throughout side B in the post-Clutch swagger  at the start of “Stung” or the tempo shifts in “Two Tons” give And the Rest Will Surely Perish an identity that immediately stands it apart from being a work playing to genre. Right from the start, Kings Destroy never quite fit as just being a doom band — here’s an interesting question as a nonsequitor: what is New York doom? ask Eternal Black — whatever aspects of doom might’ve been at play. They have not grown easier to categorize over the subsequent nine years.

That debut single is revisited on And the Rest Will Surely Perish as Bocchino‘s punch-in-the-gut bassline begins “Medusa” at the start of the tracklisting’s B side, which languishes purposefully in its first half only to kick into a more active riff in its second, lulling the listener into a momentary trance with effects (another detail I’d forgotten) and before one or the other of the guitars snaps back to reality. The tension in that track, though I think even the band themselves would probably call it primitive if you could force them to sit and listen to it, was pretty emblematic of where Kings Destroy were coming from at the time. While the players involved had explored different styles together in other bands, there was a sense in “Medusa” — and likewise “Old Yeller,” positioned here as the closer — that Kings Destroy‘s natural impulse was to break out, to play faster, to give some release to the tension of the songs that they felt as much as they wanted the listener to feel it. Realization of that came in a live setting, where their inherent New York-style confrontationalism was more brought to bear.

Considering I had a (slight, tiny, minimal, not-really) hand in releasing it on CD in the first place — vinyl followed on the also-now-defunct Hydro-Phonic Records, who were so ahead of the deluxe-limited-LPs game that’s it’s sad they never got their due — it would feel self-serving to call And the Rest Will Surely Perish my favorite Kings Destroy album. Anyhow, my favorite KD record is always the next one. But no question these songs, which I hear in my head more as the live versions than the studio when I think of them, hold a special place in my heart, as does the band itself. Thinking of the fact that it will be a full 10 years since it came out next year, I can only hope there’s some kind of reissue in the works to get it back in print, which is precisely where it deserves to be.

As we round out 2019 and this decade and inherently reflect on the year and years that have been, I consider myself fortunate to have music and people like this in my life. Writing about this album — something I did plenty of at the time, but in more of a promotional context, which I enjoyed far less and is why I stopped the label — was my own little Xmas present to myself, but as always, I hope you enjoy too.

Thanks for reading.

Would you believe the raw nerve today had in only being Friday? What the hell? Some people. Or days. Pretty ballsy, in any case.

Alarm went off this morning at 4, as usual, and I shut it off and went back to sleep for another hour and 45 minutes, because, really, screw it. The Patient Mrs. went out last night to see the new Star Wars with my family, who are all big fans — I’m the black-sheep Trekkie contrarian of the family, but they’re still supportive — and I stayed home with the (then-sleeping) Pecan, ate dinner and read a book until I started to fall asleep on the couch. I read Lincoln in the Bardo last week. It made me want to write, which George Saunders always does. That’s a dangerous impulse to ignite for me. Nothing good comes of it, and I don’t just mean my lousy first drafts.

The week prior was a week. I don’t know. The Patient Mrs. said earlier this morning that it went fast. I’m not sure I agree 100 percent, but it went like weeks go. I spent a goodly portion thinking about my favorite albums of the year, and exactly none of it actually getting a post ready to list them. Whoops. That should make for a few interesting mornings coming up, but basically my plan is to put it all together between this afternoon and Tuesday, post it on Tuesday — yeah, I know it’s Xmas Eve; I don’t care — and then sit tight over the holiday, put up a couple odds and ends the rest of next week and then hit the year-end poll(s) the week after as well as bang out a Quarterly Review, though I might honestly delay that to start on Jan. 6, depending on how much is going on otherwise. I’ll know by the middle of next week how it’s going to go.

Either way, as this will be my last opportunity to say so before the actual thing, I hope you have an enjoyable and safe holiday. I’ve made my feelings on Xmas known, and I stand by them, but if you can get a couple quiet minutes to yourself when/if you need them, eat a good meal and see family, you could surely do worse. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll all get jetskis this year. I don’t want a jetski, but you know what I mean. I’m looking forward to giving The Pecan his first Mr. Potato Head and a stuffed Pete the Cat and a few other odds and ends.

But first, the weekend of putting together the Best of 2019 list. I’ll start with 30 and go from there. There’s a lot this year, but I guess that’s true every year, and when the list goes up, I’m almost always disappointed. It never looks as big on the page as the effort that goes into making it. That’s just the bottom line. I know that some people appreciate it and I’m deeply grateful for that — it’s why I do it, frankly — but woof, what a pain in the ass, from the pre-making fretting about it, to the actual doing, to the inherent “you forgot Whatever Band I Like Or Am In!” responses that always come through. Yeah. We’ll get it done though. Got a video premiere going up Monday, but then nothing else until the list goes up on Tuesday.

Alright. Great and safe weekend. Careful out there if the roads are icy.

FRM: Forum, Radio, Merch at MiBK.

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