Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Musical cartographers, those who love to pinpoint every detail of music ever recorded on to the map of the world, are always in for a treat when a new regime comes along to add emphasis to the coves, inlets and straggling shorelines; after all something new and so far undiscovered makes Maps, any map more complete.
King Harvest & The Weight, otherwise known as Ben Addy, Justin Edley and Olly Smith offer their debut album Maps as a cartographers dream, a musical offering to enrich the senses whilst at all times knowing that as with any debut, it should be taken that the lay of the land ahead is not charted territory but filled with desire to explore and chart for others who may pass by.
The highly charged album springs forth out of the blue and the discovery of such is akin to finding the source of your local river when you are a keen and developing explorer. It might not register as important as finding the source of The Nile but in terms of building interest it certainly jolts the body into wanting more, in making sure that what lays beyond the known map is ready to be discovered and make sure that the funding is there to set up a base camp in the now perfect clearing.
The album breathes in the air and makes its gestures to the past with great fortitude, with demanding riffs and bristling, burly words, the combination of which cuts down lyrical forests with ease and dissenters to the project are forced to silence their ever muffled protests. In tracks such as Morning Light, Diana, Bloodsport and the volatile New York Is Dangerous, King Harvest & The Weight reiterate the desire to take the listener back to a time when taking in a new album was ceremony, was to be savoured in serenity and to awake the possibility of new realms imagined.
A reminisce of knowing you have been somewhere before, of having studied the map so much you can envisage the pavement you walk upon, breathe in the unknowing air and see with your own eyes the conclusion of the first part of the journey is not to be scoffed at; it is how dreams are fulfilled and it is a fulfilment that makes Maps such a crucial piece of information and delight to the musical cartographer.
Ian D. Hall