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I've got a habit (probably a bad one) of letting band photos and CD packaging give me an initial expectation of a band, an impression which can frequently be jaded. This was certainly the case with this debut disc from King Elementary, a quartet of fresh-faced, photogenic, barely voting-age fellows from Jackson, Mississippi. Expecting generic "emo" rock that had been produced and Pro-Tooled within an inch of its life, I found instead a disc of confident, fairly loose rocking-out that doesn't fall squarely into any currently-trendy musical pigeonholes. The production has a live, natural feel that lets the band's energetic playing show through. The garagey quality, combined with a touch of Southern rock flavor, remind me of Kings of Leon just a bit, and that's the best I'm going to do for a comparison. The songwriting is surprisingly mature, although not entirely so. There are still some cliché moves: arbitrary stop-start parts, obvious buildups, screamy megaphone vocals, stuff like that, but nothing cringe-inducing. And the lyrics definitely have a high-school-poetry quality to them, although they're not offensively awful. "Sand and Romance" was a keeper track for me, with its nicely melodic bassline and atmospheric touches, and "Far Too Familiar" and "We Defy Gravity," while not my favorite tracks, at least have an interesting proggy, post-punk drive to them. My diminished expectations for this might be driving me to give it a higher rating than I would otherwise, but in any event, kudos to these kids for not sucking, and shame on me for expecting them to. (mike.01.06)
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