Man Alive
| King Krule
Man Alive
Man Alive! is the fourth studio album by King Krule. The album was released on 21 February 2020 through True Panther Sounds, XL Recordings, and Matador.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
The lanky London outlaw with cement-mixer lungs delivers his most anguished album yet, in which impending fatherhood collides with his habitual torments.
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The Guardian
Man Alive! was recorded at night, and it swims languorously with romance and tenderness, deftly pulling sonics from jazz, post-punk, soul and dubstep. Through the dreamlike wails of sax and scuzz, optimism seeps through.
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Metacritic
The third full-length release for Archy Marshall as King Krule was inspired in part in his move away from London. Rating:
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COS
A compelling portrait of an artist caught between youthful heartache and adult devotion.
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The Collegian
King Krule has a lot of gifts that are hard to come by. The project’s red-headed leading man, Archy Marshall, stands so thin I’m always a little worried his guitar might eat him alive, and yet he bellows with an English-acceented baritone that can rattle walls and seep its way inside your skull.
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Crack
Dive into Man Alive! at your own peril. Marshall wields chaos in the palm of his hand, melding together a powerful concoction of garage rock, hip-hop, jazz and all the influences that once inspired London multi-instrumentalist Tom Vek.
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Hot Press
An eclectic album, Man Alive! touches the dark corners of new wave, goth, punk, and – in the case of opener ‘Cellular’ – even krautrock. It’s all held together by Marshall’s signature baritone, made even more haunting thanks to generous reverb.
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Glide
Man Alive! is the third album from the London based artist King Krule (real name Archy Marshall) and it’s a gloomy mix of everything from hip-hop to noise rock to jazz. Marshall walks a fine line between artistic experimentation and somber passages he combines disparate elements into an urban grey rain cloud of a record.
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DIY
Man Alive feels like the work of an artist in transition: a handful of stunning tracks surrounded by some backfiring experiments.
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NME
Fresh from escaping London and becoming a father, a renewed and refreshed Archy Marshall has produced the most uplifting King Krule album yet.
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The Line Of The Best Fit
Man Alive! is light on the cheery acceptance of fatherhood and heavy on the slump that apparently came before. In many ways it’s peak King Krule – all paranoia, sloppy, booze-soaked slide guitar, and the dark, gruff boom that we’ve come to expect from Marshall.
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Happy
On his fourth album, Man Alive!, King Krule trudges through a reverie of haunted images in a quest for meaning.
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Northern Transmissions
It’s a peculiar album, it’s almost the sonic equivalent of when you can’t work out if you’re awake or asleep. The use of sparse, free-form jazz textures combined with Marshall’s drawled, spoken-word vocals make your eyelids hang heavy. It feels less of an album of fully formed material and more like a collection of unreleased B- sides, demos and rarities.
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Music OMH
His signature sound, a nocturnal blend of hip-hop, synthesizer sounds, jazzy punk and oddball vocalisation immediately brought to mind earlier experimentalists and genre-benders like Damon Albarn and Ian Dury and Sandinista-era The Clash.
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Rate Your Music
Man Alive sounds exactly as it says on the tin. Despite the familiar jazzy chords and growling vocals, it’s a decently far cry from the dreamlike descent of The Ooz.
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Loud And Quiet
Man Alive! is a step further into the depths of Marshall’s recesses, following on from 2017’s acclaimed The Ooz. Like its predecessor, it is less a sweeping state of the nation commentary, but rather a compendium of snippets of overheard conversations as we the listener drift through a metropolitan haze. It is a clip gallery of lives, connected by time and spirit, a collage of urban unease, dissatisfaction and distrust.
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Under The Radar
It really is an excellent record and one that will speak to Marshall's fans and detractors alike.
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All Music
Man Alive! as a set-up for a tremulous and spindly number in which the protagonist howls about violent bloodshed in an alcohol-addled state.
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Paste
Man Alive!’s biggest strength lies in its sequencing. There’s no narrative throughline to the record, but there’s certainly still an emotional journey to it, elegantly flowing from optimistic synths to self-imploding percussion, from visions of his daughter’s life to the apocalyptic end of Marshall’s own.
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Evening Standard
Like all of Archy Marshall’s music as King Krule, Man Alive! was recorded at night. It might explain the album’s dreamlike quality — some songs sound like writhing nightmares, while others loll about in an unsettled, half-asleep daze.
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Treble
Though Man Alive! is not quite as immersive as The OOZ, and therefore perhaps not quite as rewarding, it deepens King Krule’s sonic palette and overall aesthetic, showing a bit more of his hand in the process. Here, we get a better glimpse of the tenuous balance between malaise and romanticism.
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Highsnobiety
Krule’s new album Man Alive! is slated to drop on February 21 via True Panther/Matador. It marks his third studio album and will also include “Alone Omen 3.”
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The Face
His music – tender jazz chords, jagged guitar lines, post-dubstep moans – radiated a profound sense of sadness. And though these swampily mixed songs were isolationist and intensely personal, they were also gently swooning, swimming in oceans of melody and theatrical vocals.
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The Student Playlist
Man Alive! is Archy Marshall’s third King Krule album, and for his existing fanbase, there will be plenty of what they already love about him in there. It has all the distorted guitars as well Marshall’s distinctive and almost inhuman gravel-like vocals that have brought him success. Unfortunately, unlike his previous work, Man Alive! does its best to hide his undoubted talent with largely vague and elliptical lyrics and a general feeling of musical anonymity.
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Gigwise
The slow-burning, soulful new tune - stuffed with Krule's distinctive vocal and a dash of avant garde unpredicatability - also sees Archy Marshall in his directorial debut.
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The Needle Drop
The more direct and tuneful approach King Krule takes on Man Alive! makes it—to my ears—a vast improvement over The Ooz.
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Bc Heights
Marshall continues pushing the boundaries of rock music and weaving genres as wide-ranging as punk, hip-hop, soul, electronic, and jazz together seamlessly on his latest album Man Alive!
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Meaww
This is certainly a gloomy and reflective album, but it's also sentimental and euphoric in parts, and that's certainly what makes King Krule so enchanting — he bares his soul for the world to see, and somehow, by sharing in his sorrow, we suddenly feel less alone in our own struggles.
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Stereoboard
The London artist, real name Archy Marshall, will put out the follow-up to 2017's 'The Ooz' on February 21 via XL Recordings. It's preceded by the slow, dubby new track (Don’t Let The Dragon) Draag On.
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The Times
King Krule goes into the realms of the formless in his latest album.
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The Wee Review
There’s some tasty ingredients on Man Alive! for sure, but they’ve been cooked together into one big mush. Somewhere within is a smart depiction of stolen-futured British urban life that could more than hold its own among others of that ilk.
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The Boar
Initially a slow burner, the album is dark and heavy throughout, but at no point does it feel like a slog to get through and despite being 14 songs long, the relatively short running time of 42 minutes means that it never overstays its welcome. Upon each return to the record, you find yourself further understanding the complicated mind of King Krule, discovering new musical textures that help blend the album together.
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Wrongmog
Like its predecessors, Man Alive! was recorded at night, and it swims languorously with romance and tenderness, deftly pulling sonics from jazz, post-punk, soul and dubstep. Through the dreamlike wails of sax and scuzz, optimism seeps through.
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Nialler9
Man Alive! is almost socio-political in flashes. On a track like ‘Stoned Again’ the doom and gloom of Brexit England is the unaddressed elephant in the room. Our narrator, mind racing on fumes from the ceaseless mental stimulus of the past two songs announces the track with a sampled voice.
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Music Feeds
King Krule has been quiet since the release of his 2017 album The Ooz, but now the critical fave has announced the title of his third album Man Alive! On top of the album announce, he’s also released a video for its incredible lead single ‘(Don’t Let the Dragon) Draag On’ to accompany it – directed by the man himself.
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Exclaim
Thematically, Man Alive! hears Marshall processing and preparing for becoming a father for the first time — though he was still adding songs up to the point when his daughter was six months old.
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Medium
Man Alive! feels too abundant in its slow, sludgy, melancholic ballads for my enjoyment. the full project really does seem to drag on considerably, feeling more like an hour and a half than its actual runtime of just over 40 minutes. If I was going to use an apt metaphor for this album, it’s like wading through a thick swamp, with very few stones to climb up on and pull ones self out of the musical molasses.
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