ALBUM REVIEW: Marcus King Bares an Old Soul on Scorching ‘Young Blood’

Tired of feeling menaced by reality? Sick of fretting over the fate of the world? Sometimes the best antidote to the stresses of modern life is a blast of purifying electric noise. If that seems inviting, take a shot of Marcus King’s blazing Young Blood. Blending bluesy turbocharged guitar, man-on-fire vocals, and driving beats — complete with cowbell! —  this thrilling concoction delivers fast relief, and then some.

Young Blood reunites the South Carolina native and producer Dan Auerbach, who also did the honors on 2020’s El Dorado (ND review), King’s first official solo outing after albums fronting The Marcus King Band. Although Auerbach (among other contributors) co-writes all the songs with King and plays a little, his main job is to get out of his client’s way. Despite a retro vibe, the music lacks the thudding quality of ancient forefathers like Mountain and Bad Company, trading their dinosaur crunch for a buzzier, propulsive sound that enhances King’s flashy guitar virtuosity and deceptively accomplished singing. Auerbach has a gifted ally in drummer Chris St. Hilarie, who swings rather than stomps, adding a jazzy undercurrent.

There’s old-fashioned fun aplenty, with fuzzy, overheated guitars crackling like an exposed power line. Having downplayed his six-string skills on El Dorado to make a case for being a well-rounded artist, King throws caution to the wind here, uncorking exciting solos on almost every track; as strong as many songs are, his inventive shredding invariably makes them better. King’s rip-snorting outburst on the brooding “Aim High” even approaches the ecstatic heights of Jimi Hendrix.

Though his vocal inflections reflect the influence of old masters like Gregg Allman and Paul Rodgers, King eschews their macho swagger. Singing scratchier and higher than those rugged dudes, he instead comes across as an idiosyncratic soul man tasked with leading a rock-and-roll band, suggesting a backwoods cousin of Smokey Robinson. King’s pensive crooning is deeply moving on the downbeat “Rescue Me,” when he pleads for release from “all this pain that’s been haunting me.”

Women of all stripes wander through the album, from the evil temptress of “Good and Gone” to the virtuous angel of “It’s Too Late,” where King gently kisses off a lover, saying, “You’ll never hear about me disrespecting your name,” perhaps implying he’s a more evolved breed of man. Mostly, however, he comes across as the kind of tortured soul who’s been desperately fleeing damnation since the birth of the blues. The mournful closing track, “Blues Worse Than I Ever Had,” is a chilling cry for help that lingers in the mind long after it ends. The tension between such acute melancholy and the joyous racket made by King and company gives Young Blood its mighty kick.

Marcus King’s Young Blood is out Aug. 26 on American Records/Republic.