Archy Marshall was hermetic, chameleonic; now he is anchored. The artist most commonly known as King Krule spent the 2010s shapeshifting, experimenting with form and void. He established a trademark sound - spare, echoed, melodic and guitar-centric - on 6 Feet Beneath the Moon and then proceeded to splinter off in every other direction. A New Place 2 Drown, released under his own name, shot for trip-hop, dubstep and restless breakbeat, proving that Marshall could well be the UK's finest electronic export if he so chose. The OOZ, his finest album under the King Krule moniker, was yet more ambitious, warping punk, rockabilly, languid R&B, ambient jazz and shuffling funk through an unmistakably aquatic filter. Then Marshall had a daughter, Marina (I wasn't lying when I said aquatic), with whom he is evidently besotted. You can pinpoint her arrival on Man Alive!, when that record's four-song opening stretch of noxious post-punk is interrupted by a floating interlude, 'The Dream'. The pace of the album slows dramatically, Marshall's writing goes introspective, and the atmosphere becomes gilded and hazy. It feels more airborne than aquatic: the guitars are shimmering and electrified, each strum splitting off particulate matter that hangs and falls weightlessly in the mix. With the release of Space Heavy, Marshall's fourth King Krule album, he consolidates this sound into a new signature. But where the inward focus of Man Alive! brought with it moments of hope and wonder, Space Heavy is clouded by hurt and isolation at almost every turn.

Marshall wanders into more dynamic territory but always returns to ruminate on loneliness. 'Pink Shell', a psychobilly rocker a la The Cramps, is openly sleazy ("I nailed your girlfriend") and "slimy" but ends with Marshall singing "I am waiting for someone / I have not seen them anywhere". 'Empty Stomach Space Cadet' brings yet more energy with an infectous rolling groove but Marshall is consumed by a metaphysical sense of isolation: "You sail through space / you sail through time / the thunder, it rumbles, it breaks, it takes away!" Even the skittering drill'n'bass of 'Hamburgerphobia' can only momentarily draw Marshall's attention away from crux of the album: the empty space you only notice once a loved one is no longer there.

Generally, the music on Space Heavy provides comfort to compensate for Marshall's despondent writing. The album is full of soft, bassy psychedelia that provides the room for Marshall's lead guitar or Ignacio Salvadores' saxophone to wander through the ether. It plays beautifully on 'That Is My Life, That Is Yours', where Marshall spends a day wandering through London trying to find someone he has lost; as his search fails, he is soothed by the warmth of the night surrounding him. Marshall has always played with recurring motifs, and he reprises that feeling in the sound and concept on 'If Only It Was Warmth'. The album is also home to some of the Marshall's most earnest forays into ambient music through 'Flimsy' and 'When Vanishing', two moments of deliberate respite from Marshall's spurned, occasionally acerbic words.

Space Heavy really succeeds in its most tender moments, when Marshall's humanity peers through his loss and solitude. 'Seaforth' is the shining example of this, a gorgeous ode to Marina (who is credited as a co-writer on the song). In the King Krule world, it is near impossible to find the kind of unreserved joy and love that Marshall feels on 'Seaforth'. Even on devotional songs like 'Baby Blue' and 'Perfecto Miserable', Marshall's adoration is usually undercut by desperation or regret. Here, he finds genuine contentment: "we sit and smile without concern / now walk through shop centres together / our love dissolves this universe". There is something so amazingly hopeful about the way he sings "we share the dark days between us" that elevates the song in its final moments. On 'Flimsier', Marshall solemnly mourns the death of a relationship and delivers a jaw-dropping couplet in the process: "my eyes were popping out of sockets / onto empty chests". At the end of it all, there is 'Wednesday Overcast'. It is impenetrable and greyscale at first, propelled by a heavy, knocking drum sequence. Marshall's spoken word verse sounds downcast and exhausted, worn down by the heavy emotion of the album's second half. But in the song's final lines he lets the light in: "My head was empty / my life was discreet / a lot has changed / now a lot means to me". The complexion of the album changes, ever so slightly, and a ray of optimism pokes through: perhaps the source of Marshall's pain is newfound feeling.

80

Sam Gollings

21 June 2023