King Buffalo – Burden of Restlessness

 

 

King Buffalo – Burden of Restlessness
Stickman Records – 2021
Rock, Prog, Psych, Stoner
Rated: *****

Their Dead Star release was one of the best albums of 2020. So when King Buffalo announced they would be releasing three albums in 2021 all heads turned at once with mouth agape and a wild fluster in their hearts. Indeed, and if the quality of the following two even come close to this first one that has been released, it will become a majestic trilogy. For you know, what might be missing from loads of great albums we all love so dearly in this enormous heavy rock niche we all curl up into to hide from the outside cold. Might be a sense of urgency and the ability to transcend the mundane; offering insights and feelings about what the human condition is going through. King Buffalo have the strength and ability to make you feel that both we and they are hemmed in and torn by similar walls, frustrations and tragedies. The new album Burden Of Restlessness is dense enough to be compulsive, somewhat hard to hear at first, the precision and the fury that resides underneath the riffs and rhythms. Where Dead Star offered a same approach but all layered with different sort of shade, they now show more humility and a dazed frenzy. Burden Of Restlessness is about casualties, a search for alternatives, for something to do, something worthwhile. They emerge as masters at rendering the boredom and desperation of living comfortably in this society. Of translating the impossibility to escape the prison of prosperity. Often the sense of helplessness and impotence is not particularly pleasing; and such withering and brutal personal honesty is what now sets King Buffalo apart from most peers. The same can be said about those synapse-snapping shifts in tempo and tone or the way the bass weaves itself beneath all the different elements, lifting them up and with that emphasizing each one even more. It brings focus to every note played and every color chosen. Dense, concentrated and heavy but opening up whenever they allow the tension to slacken. The first of three... Amazing artists with sublime craftmanship...

(Written by JK)

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