Nebraska 23: King's X - Gretchen Goes to Nebraska

Heavy Confession

Had forgotten about this one and its Nebraska reference, though like many of the others that tip their naming hats to the State of my birth, this has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Whilst a narrative album, the title apparently sprang from an idle piece of banter amongst the band one day and a decision sometime later that this album would be named after one of the comic lines from that repartee.

But the prompt also made me think of the band, an 80s/90s [and current, though Jimmy Gaskill has recently been ill after double by-pass surgery] Harmony-Metal band and how much I have always liked them. The heavy side is informed by superb lead vocal over a tight trio of pulsing rock riffs, and their harmonies are West Coast, for want of a tag, and provide an interesting, distinctive balance - the two songs on this album Summerland and The Difference exemplifying that mix in particular. An absolute favourite of mine is the riff-intense Black the Sky from their 1994 album Dogman.

Ostensibly a band with Christian sensibilities, whether just in the early days or currently [what one reads on this is contradictory, so uncertain], they were never evangelical in whatever degree of their individual or collective belief. I mention not because it actually matters but because it makes me reflect on my own prejudices in how I can find myself baulking at the term 'Christian' artist/band [though overt and twee Christian lyrical proclivities do alienate], and I have to accept the hypocrisy of that as a general response because I more readily 'accept' those who profess other spiritual inspiration: think of George Harrison as an obvious example, and the lineage of similar. Much more complex than this snippet of secular confession, but it just occurred as I was writing.



Listening to Dogman as I have been writing this latter bit. A great album.