Marcus King “Young Blood” Album Review

Young Blood

Marcus King

• • Genre: Alternative
  • Date: 26 Aug, 2022
  • Content: Not-explicit
  • Region: USA
  • Track(s): 11

• American Recordings; ℗ 2022 Marcus King, under exclusive license to Republic Records, a division of UMG Recordings Inc.

Kings come and go. One king is here, and it doesn’t appear he is going away anytime soon. Meet Marcus King, the singer and pianist behind the new album “Young Blood.”

Blood is life, yes? And from the sound of his latest project, it is clear the songster, who’s most often referred to as the frontman of the band named for him, The Marcus King Band, brings life in all its refreshing colours to whoever would listen to him.

The songster might be a youngling, but he’s got a powerful compilation here – a project for which he might be remembered and for a long time, too. So join us, if you please, as we walk into the orbit of his latest body of work.

Artwork

The cover art is the first window into a project. Sometimes it might give clues to a body of work. At other times it is obfuscatory. Either way, you would rarely find a musician worth the name that doesn’t release artwork to go with a project.

Marcus King has an artwork for his project, a reflection of the man himself. The cover art shows the singer, hat tipped, face somewhat downwards in what must have been a moment of contemplation. He is young and alive and brings an alert intelligence for music lovers to experience.

Tracklist

A look at the tracklist shows that the American singer made his project a personal affair. The significance of this move will be explained later. The songster opted for something compact and went hard on the songs.

“Young Blood” is an 11-track project beginning with “It’s Too Late” and ending with “Blues Worse Than I Ever Had.” In between those are tracks like “Lie Lie Lie,” “Rescue Me,” “Pain,” “Good and Gone,” “Blood on the Tracks,” “Hard Working Man,” “Aim High,” “Dark Clouds,” and “Whispers.”

NO	TITLE	TIME
1	It’s Too Late	2:56
2	Lie Lie Lie	3:35
3	Rescue Me	4:46
4	Pain	4:22
5	Good and Gone	3:20
6	Blood on the Tracks	3:58
7	Hard Working Man	3:37
8	Aim High	5:13
9	Dark Cloud	3:45
10	Whisper	3:38
11	Blues Worse Than I Ever Had	3:31

Key Songs

“Key,” like “best,” is subjective. What one might give those tags, others might deny them. Still, more likely than not, a listener will fall more in love with some songs in a project than with others. At any rate, that’s our experience with this compilation.

A couple of songs tickled us from this project. One of them is “Pain” (track No. 4). This highly relatable scorcher of a tune will appeal to listeners beyond the orbit of alternative music.

Another number that caught our attention is “Aim High” (track 8). The title of the song might hint at a singer walking a didactic path. But from listening to the song, you realize it’s actually worth it and the number worth the time spent on it. Nothing drab.

Another song that resonates with us is track 10, “Whisper,” a song of understated lyrical charm.

Features

For a project of 11 songs, it is noteworthy that Marcus King opted to walk solo. Yeah, the songster tapped the vocal resources of no one else. He was the man of the album – a solo voice. It’s unclear why he walked alone, but then there’s not much to fault about his decision because he also did well on the songs.

Message

Several messages are couched in this album, from the bright to the bleak, the didactic to the comedic. So, in a sense, there is almost something for everyone and every temperament. There is something for the moment and something for the future.

The takeaways are luminous and should engage just about any soul on a quest for understanding.

Summing Up

“Young Blood” plays for exactly 43 minutes – enough time to provoke a yawn. You don’t get to yawn from listening to the album, though, which is a plus for a project sans featured artists.

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