11.10.09
The Almighty Defenders
The Almighty Defenders
Vice Records
The Almighty Defenders is the name given to the two week-long collaboratio between Atlanta’s Black Lips and Berlin/Montreal’s King Khan & BBQ Show. Interestingly enough, both of these groups have released their own albums this year, which are emblematic of the sounds they’ve been developing. Self-described “Flower Punks,” the Black Lips have an early sixties aesthetic to their sound, a sound representative of a time when music journalism hadn’t quite reached the absurd state it’s in today (although it was well on its way), a time when the dividing lines between genres weren’t quite so stark.
Similarly, the fuzzed-out doo-wop garage sound of the King Khan and BBQ show defies easy categorization.
So, how do you add these two disparate and difficultly described sounds to get… a gospel album?
Well, it’s not as simple as that, really. I use the word “gospel” lightly, but it still fits here. There are some preachy numbers here with lots of sweat and shouting and testifying, and the album as a whole seems to borrow more from KK&BBQ’s R&B influenced sound than Ian St. Pe’s Fender.
The collaboration surprisingly never exceeds what these groups have accomplished on their own. Sadly, the whole is less than the sum of its (considerable) parts. The guys had fun making it, however, and you should too listening to it.
Here they are performing the album’s strongest track, “Cone of Light”
