You Heat Me Up, You Cool Me Down (King Krule Album Review)

The thought of everyone living a life that is so complex, is one that sometimes keeps me up at night, something that comes to mind whenever I listen to King Krule.

King Krule’s music feels like the deepest depths of R.E.M, swirling and trying to clutch onto any sense of reality as you slip further and further into your dream land. Soundscapes made up of passing cars and the screams of someone trying to find their place in this world, black and white blurry pictures all colliding together into a wall of sound that almost always throws me for a loop.

​Faces pass, unknown territories are unlocked, in the face of a man telling you about his day to day, screaming for a release of some kind. But, what is that release exactly? Rooted in videos of sunsets, planes and pieces of the UK, all pulled together in the face of hard hitting drums, guitar and saxophone lines that follow you around like a shadow you just can't quite shake.

​While this isn't Archy's first live album (Live on the Moon back in 2018 was his first dip into creating a live music album) this is the first live album he's released. For someone who has yet been able to see Archy live (I was supposed to this year, but Covid got in the way), You Heat Me Up, You Cool Me Down is an album I will hold very close to me, until I get the opportunity. Baby Blue was the first song I heard from Archy and from there I was immediately hooked.

It wasn’t until I moved to South East London, in between Peckham and Camberwell did I realise how important he was to so many people. Everyone I would meet, whenever we would get onto the topic of music, it was always difficult to not hear someone mention King Krule … or to mention Archy himself. He was a superstar. The kind of musician, that even if you couldn’t completely relate to everything he was singing about, you still feel it. You take it away with you, every single song stays with you and you can’t help but think about it days or even months after.

There's a really unique feel to this album as you start to understand the intricacies between performer and audience, that I only have ever felt in a live setting with sticky floors and shoes that squeak every time you move. What may, to some, feel lacking on the studio versions of these songs, makes up ten fold in the live versions. Energy quite literally pours from these tracks, dizzying guitars and intense vocals that stay with you long after the track has come to an end. There's a certain kind of grit that Archy carries around with him in these live versions, almost as if he knows nothing lasts forever (just like the tour he had to cancel only a few shows in due to Covid).

In between tracks, there are moments of reprieve, almost as if you're on some kind of comedown. Applause and whoops are filtered in every now and again to help with continuity, but for the most part, it's just Archy and his band taking over all of the senses. It isn't until we come to Easy Easy at the end of the album, that you really start to hear the audience. The boos when Archy admits that "this is the last song" to screams that get slightly louder when the starting notes of Easy Easy begin to play. With all their might, the audience sings back with as much energy as Archy provides, but easily gets drowned out by the biting vocals and energetic guitars.

However, there is still that familiar buzz that the audience has carried with them through out the whole of this live album.

While, at times, it may not be vocal, you can still feel it. That residual energy that you get when you're waiting in a crowd, the tap of someones foot or the whispers of friends who are there to see their favourite artist. The way people smile and laugh, before everyone goes quiet as soon as the lights go down, as soon as the first pluck of a guitar or hit of a drum is heard, that sort of nervous buzz that surrounds you. This album captures that and so much more, so perfectly.

There's something special about this album.

I think it will be one I replay a lot in the future as a sign of the times and a sign of the fact that even during what became a global crisis, music still helped heal and move the world forward in more capacities than people thought were possible.