Speaking The King’s formed in late 2011 as a collaboration between former band mates Justin Bock and fellow guitarist Mike Entin, bassist Brad Reihl, and drummer Will Peacock. Having gained the attention of Tom Denny (producer and former guitarist of A Day To Remember) they quickly found singer Bobby Burap and completed their lineup. Amongst others the bands have shared stages with Of Mice & Men, We Came As Romans and Blessthefall.
Just the names of the bands mentioned in that opening paragraph should give you some idea of how this album, because it does sound very similar to all of those bands. Metalcore bands seem to be ten a penny these days, and with such lack of variation within the genre it is very easy to draw comparisons between Speaking The King’s and plenty of other bands.
Carousel is not bad as such. In fact at some point it’s thoroughly enjoyable ‘Liar Liar’ for instance, is a great song, albeit with a breakdown that verges on boring – and therein lies the problem. Carousel is so formulaic in it’s production and presentation that even songs like ‘Motion Sickness’, which is a welcome break from the purely metalcore style in favour of a more (older) Young Guns sound is so lacking in hooks that it simply passes you by. In fact, the whole album seems to transition from being a purely metalcore affair to being a more hard rock sound in the middle, around ‘Shipwrecked’ and ‘Worthless’.
The strange thing is, as mentioned, it doesn’t actually make this album hateful. At no point of listening were we ever tempted to turn it off and put on something else. But at the same time there was no small utterances of excitement; ‘Shipwrecked’ came close, where you can really hear Denny’s influence coming through, but even that produced no increased heart rate, and not really anything more than a “Mmm that’s alright.”
