Neu Spring King

: Spring King
Based: Liverpool / Manchester
Listen: Soundcloud.com/Springking
Similar to: Wavves

Spring King are a garage-rock five-piece who hail from in and around Liverpool and Manchester, helmed by polymath, Tarek Musa. A native of the latter city and producer to some of the North-West’s hottest emerging acts, Tarek is proving something of a go-to-guy for that raw aesthetic so highly sought after by the young and achingly cool with production credits on records by dream-pop kids Châteaux and psych-eccentrics Stealing Sheep amongst others.

That meaty authenticity is caked all over his work with Spring King although their tracks tend to form around little more than a skeleton of a melody, stripped back with piranha-like efficiency before layer upon layer of squelchy, fleshy reverb is slathered lovingly back on.

Recent track/video release ‘V-V-V-Vampire’ is Spring King at their exhilarating best. Two solid minutes of squealing guitar lines clash with nerve-rending snare cracks and heaving kick beats while Tarek’s warped chattering adds an additional touch of psychosis to a visual experience which already involves more blood than a Game of Thrones betrothal. Grisly stuff and a stark contrast to their trio of warmly lilting March drops including the sun-baked, Smith Westerns-nodding ‘Waiting’ and ‘Avocado City’s Wavves-gone-tropical bounce.
Spring King claim to have over 50 of these confrontational little punk-flecked gems in reserve but they’re yet to get a formal release under their belt. In fact, ‘Waiting’ was recorded in an out-of-order toilet, so they’re doing nothing remotely ‘by the book’. Surely it won’t be long before someone takes the plunge and tries to commit these combustible, gas guzzling summer anthems to wax. Whether it will sound as joyfully mental with Tarek’s DIY essence thinned down remains to be seen.