I have been a fan of Kingsley Flood since I first saw them perform at the Lowell Summer Music Series at least six years ago, and the love continues.
They recently released a new album – Another Other – which is their most personal album to date, and it will be featured at their upcoming show at The Sinclair on Friday, November 18th. Tickets are still available here and you need to be at the show! Both openers – Leland Sundries and Jenny Dee and the Deelinquents – are killer and you should catch them too.
What follows is the press release for the album.
“For much of his childhood growing up in suburban Boston, Naseem Khuri didn’t even realize he was Palestinian-American. It was only later that he learned that his mother and father had both been born in Palestine and fled to Lebanon as children; only later that he started to notice walls going up and suspicious glances being cast his way at bars and in airports; only later that he found people considered him—a Massachusetts native—”Middle Eastern”, with all the implicit bias and baggage those two words entail; only later that he realized he’d never truly be seen as a “regular” American, despite this country being the only home he’d ever known and the fact that he doesn’t speak Arabic.
That tension – between growing up comfortably in a nice suburb and existing on the margins as an ‘other’ – lies at the heart of Another Other – the new album from Kingsley Flood, the rollicking, literate, five-piece rock and roll band Khuri fronts—and sets the stage for the band’s most personal album to date. He says, “On the one hand, I came from an affluent suburb and enjoyed a life of privilege. On the other hand, I was still seen as ‘an other’ because of my name and heritage. I felt like I fit in both places and neither place at the same time,” he says, adding, “I had this complexity growing up because I could look white, but I also knew I wasn’t totally white.”
“The Bridge” kicks off the album, talking about a bridge that divides a more posh neighborhood in Boston from a poor neighborhood. Naseem reflects, “I was told not to cross into Mission Hill because it wasn’t safe. In retrospect, it was just different.”
Other songs show these contradictions in action: Naseem says, “The title track ‘Another Other’ is a true story based on so-called friends suddenly not trusting me, literally leaving me in a bar, when they saw shit about terrorism on TV and then learned I was Arab. ‘To the Wolves’ is how I felt in a shitty job that was going nowhere, writing songs on napkins when my boss wasn’t looking.” Other songs concern the idea that change, while necessary, is hard to come by, both personally to Naseem and societally.
One of his biggest fears is complacency and this album is anything but, musically and lyrically. Already, it’s earned comparisons to the Hold Steady, Titus Andronicus, Billy Bragg, and The Gaslight Anthem.
Kingsley Flood is undeniably on the rise. The band has opened for Josh Ritter, Grace Potter, Lucius, Langhorne Slim and been spotlighted by NPR, New York Times, Stereogum, Esquire Magazine, and Wall Street Journal, among others. They’re nearing a million spins on Spotify.”
Here is a video that shows you what you will experience WHEN you come to one of their shows.
This article was originally posted on Suze Reviews the Blues.
