Review: King Giant, "Dismal Hollow"

I’m a sucker for a good Southern-flavored groove. It’s where I come from. I heard just as much Waylon Jennings, Hank Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest growing up, and though I abandoned my Southern roots in music for a while in my teens and early 20s, I’ve grown to appreciate them again. That’s what initially drew me to King Giant’s debut Southern Darkness. It blended so many things that I like – the sludginess of bands like Crowbar and Down, the Black Sabbath base template for all metal , and a Southern rock attitude. I loved it, and, if anything, the grooves are bigger on their follow-up Dismal Hollow.

Review: King Giant, "Southern Darkness"

King Giant may hail from Virginia, but the sludge they dish out on Southern Darkness sounds like something raked up from the bottom of a muddy Louisiana swamp. The sound is dense, like a dark, menacing beast that pays tribute to metal legends like Black Sabbath, walks hand-in-hand with sludge contemporaries like Down and Crowbar and even incorporates the influences of outlaw country and Southern rock – all things that I love.

Though I like just about everything on the record, the band is at its best when it gets the right balance of those elements.