King Rhythm's album will make you dance

Rhythm is the dancer on this wondrously demented and psychedelic album, which manages to bridge the gap between rock n roll and hip hop almost seamlessly and headed in his own direction.

King Rhythm - Rock Star Dementia (out now on Catalyst records) 8/10.

There’s a definite sense that King Rhythm, who comes from Baltimore, Maryland, knows what he’s doing and what he wants from his new album, despite the fact that its called ‘Rock Star Dementia.’ The opening track ‘Death Rattle’, has a sample of someone saying (possibly Philip Seymour Hoffman ?!?!), ‘Its just a shame rock ‘n’ roll is over, we got here just in time for the death rattle’, which pretty much claims and announces that rock n roll is dead. This is possibly part of the rock star dementia that King Rhythm set about trying to discover and access whilst making this album, and to then try and show a representation of it throughout the album. ‘Rock Star Dementia’ is the sound of someone determined - almost dementedly so - to find and carve out there own groove. It’s a delightfully demented album to say the least but an album that seems to both on a psychedelic trip and be very accessible at the same time all whilst King Rhythm raps over the top and trying to push hip hop in new directions, or at least his own rap rock crossover direction. There’s a mixture of the deadpan delivery of E from Eels, which crops up in King Rhythms flow at times which turns into a rock n roll swagger and superiority to the point of delicious delirium on ’Bowie In Space, mixed with the ’Odelay’ era Beck via Beastie Boys alt-pop sampledelia. This is felt particularly on the aforementioned ’Bowie In Space,’ which a load of David Bowie samples spliced up and turned into star dust. It’s a fantastic rave tune and is a tribute to the might of Bowie, particularly with the slightly worrying and nagging lyrics of ’I’m Bowie in space, doing lines of coke its floating in my face, stardust and smoke.’ As well as on ’Antipodes’ which takes things in to more of a fired-up-rocker direction. Also on ‘Food Chain’ its hard to tell whether King Rhythm himself is doing the spoken word monologue or if it’s a sample and sometimes its difficult to tell the difference which is testimony to King Rhythms skill as a producer as well as his unique flow as a rapper. On ‘Gone Days’ the repeated lines of, ‘You don’t stop, you don’t quit until you’re gone’ gives us a hint at the frailed and flailing psychosis which permeates throughout this track and the album in general. Also the rhythm that shuffles and hiccups back and forth show us that King Rhythm has his own nifty way around a pop tune. A similar thing occurs on the final track of the album, the alt-country/hip hop via a bit of fried acid - by the sounds of it - of ‘Sleep Thunder’, where there’s the repeated line of ‘make up your mind, shake up your mind.’ This album shows that King Rhythm is not prepared to rest on his laurels and wants to keep on changing the way that he works and goes about making music. Stream the album from here: 
http://kingrhythm.bandcamp.com/album/rock-star-dementia (But if you choose to give money your proceeds will be donates to the Alzheimer's association - 
http://www.alz.org) Download the album from here: 
http://www.catalystact.com/KingRhythm-RockStarDementia.zip To check his previous music: 
http://www.soundcloud.com/kingrhythm
http://www.twitter.com/kingrhythm
http://www.kingrhythm.com

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