Reverend and the Makers – The Death of a King

Indie Rock | Alternative Rock

77%

With their last album Mirrors, Sheffield’s own Reverend and the Makers offered a diverse and engaging record that far outshone albums from some of their more renowned contemporaries. With this new release, The Death of a King, every aspect of Mirrors has been turned up a notch; both the positives and the negatives. On the plus side, the lads have yet again produced one of the most diverse albums of the year. From the blues stomp of ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘Miss Haversham’ and the Eastern tinged instrumental ‘Bang Seray’, to the simple folk of ‘Juliet Knows’ and the vaudevillian flair of ‘Carlene’ and ‘Black Cat’, the lads seems to excel at whatever genre happens to take their fancy. These lads are like the Daley Thompson of music; jack of all trades and master of pretty much all of them.

The issues arise, once again, from these myriad ideas all being underdeveloped. With only 2 songs on the album over the 3 minute mark, The Death of a King is like a meal at a fancy restaurant; it’s fantastic, but doesn’t leave you feeling satisfied. In this respect the album is very much a matter of taste. If you value quality over quantity then this is the album for you, but personally I’d much rather see some of the styles here developed further rather than as part of a sample package of what the band could be capable of if they put their mind to it. Likewise lyrically I was hoping they might dig a little deeper this time around. It’s not a perfect album by any means, but it is still a damn good one. There’s a lot of great music crammed into this record, and I daresay there’s no other release this year quite like it.