PLEASE COME HOME...MR. BULBOUS

I've long held the belief that Please Come Home.Mr Bulbous is a less than spectacular, even poor release, from King's X and as a result it has spent little time in my cd player. Why would it when I have so many other great King's X albums to choose from. However sitting down to listen to it again for the purpose of this review has made me think that perhaps I was being a bit harsh. Sure it's never going to rival the likes of their self titled debut and certainly not their all time classic Gretchen Goes to Nebraska but there's some decent stuff going on here.

By now King's X must have been wondering what they have to do to attain the success they'd been striving for. Perhaps because of this frustration the overall feel of this album is more downbeat and darker. But don't worry as they still combine their popier influenced Beatles style harmony backing vocals with their melodic heavy rock/metal along with touches of psychedelia.

Up until this point King's X have always managed to kick off their albums with a great opener. Fish Bowl Man does not keep up the tradition however despite having many King's X trademarks including one of the albums heaviest riffs. The verse is quite interesting with its scale climbing approach but the chorus is not one of their best. Much better is Julia which though very downbeat has a haunting melody. She's Gone Away is also excellent capturing all the best things about the band being both heavy and melodic at the same time, Ty Tabor also taking lead vocals as well as supplying a great guitar riff. Completing a trio of excellent consecutive tracks is Marsh Mellow Fields. Tabors guitar compliments a heavy riffing chorus with some moody atmospheric restrained playing on the verse and Jerry Gaskill drives it along with a nice drum groove and not forgetting a fine vocal performance from Doug Pinnick.

Much of the rest of the album is King's X treading water, nothing particularly bad about it but at the same time less than essential listening which is a shame.

So overall despite feeling I may have been a bit harsh with my previous judgement of the album it's far from a classic with only a trio of really excellent tracks. One for the fan who has to have everything by the band I think, the rest of you should check out some of their earlier classics or the return to form the band have made with their most recent 2 albums, Ogre Tones and XV. 2 ½ stars.

In My Not So Humble Opinion:

A friend of mine recently gave me "Please Come Home . . . Mr. Bulbous" praising it as one if his favorite King's X CD's. I tried to like it, oh I tried, in the end I came to the realization that: Please Come Home . . . Mr. Bulbous is probably not the best effort by King's X. While it does have a lot of the King's X chops and vocals that you expect, there is very little of the energy. It's not that Mr. Bulbous is a bad CD, it's just not a very good one.

There are a few highlights; Charlie Sheen is a upbeat tune with Ty Tabor dropping a tasty little clean lick and sings lead to boot. According to the band, Charlie Sheen really has nothing to do with the song; it just rhymed with 'save the queen'. I dunno, I'd have gone with 'dancing spleen' or 'Krispy Kreme' instead. I say this cause I've been wondering what war Charlie Sheen was supporting back in 2000 for about a week. Good song, nonetheless.

Fish Bowl Man is another decent, heavy King's X song and Marsh Mellow Field has a catchy chorus.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is more like a Gazpacho album . . . without the ambience . . . or subtlety . . . or layers. "Julia", "She's Gone Away", "When You're Scared", "Smudge", "Bitter Sweet", and "Move Me" (both parts) drone on at the same slow and bitter sounding tempo and despite multiple listens, do everything in their power not to distinguish themselves from each other.

I'd love to give this a great rating, there were only three or four other ratings and a decent rating on this album would propel it so much higher. I can't, two stars. (See this is why I make a poor journalist, I feel guilty now) Grab "Charlie Sheen" on iTunes (the song, not the actor), and go on to Ogre Tones.