I`m trying extra hard at the moment to be a real prick by reviewing
some really obscure music that i couldn`t blame anyone for not com-
menting on, simply because it`s probaly stuff that no one has heard
of. I say that tongue in cheek, even though if you could see what i`m
thinking you`d know i am mighty pissed off with many of my readers
because they wouldn`t and wont make comments and consequently i
had to remove the name music from my blog, until further notice any-
way. Because damn it, if i dont get comments when i ask for them then
i will write about whatever i want, i dont fartarse around my whole life
for internet loafers to turn interactive. I gave up on that idea about two
years ago. Anyway, i got a real hard rock/progressive obscurity tonight,
it`s the one-off solo album of Kings X drummer Jerry Gaskill that come
out in 2004 called `Come Somewhere`. Kings X are a relatively obscure
band themselves, they`ve been around for nearly 30 years now, but the
first album of theirs only come out in `87, the legendary `Out of The Si-
lent Planet`, which they followed up two years later with the completely
bizarre and warped `Gretchen Goes To Nebraska`. Their best album be-
sides their stunning debut would have to be the more new metal-grunge
influenced `Dogman` from 1993, their fifth album. They`re officially still
a band and still recording to this day, but realistically the solo outings of
the band members in the last ten years has been better most of the time
than what Kings X has released. `Come Somewhere` has a very typically
Kings X like detached soundscape, Gaskill wasn`t use to being a lead vo-
calist and it shows on most of the tracks. He played on most of the instru-
ments which feature on the album, he wouldn`t win a prize for picking a
guitar but he always had Ty Tabor, the lead guitarist of Kings X, there to
give him a hand. Considering Tabor`s involvement, it wouldn`t be unrea-
sonable to consider this album an `unofficial` Kings X album and a rather
mediocre excuse for Gaskill to put his name to a collection of songs which
might have been Kings X leftovers at some stage. But despite the rather
abstract lyricism and at times rather forced tempo changes in the songs,
`Come Somewhere` still has some redeeming qualities, and i might say,
mainly because of Ty Tabor`s presence. Tabor`s brooding bass playing
and dynamics on the keyboard filled in many of the blanks which would
have categorised the album if he weren`t around. `Crazy` and `Gallop`
are my favourite tunes, two of the more untempo tunes where Tabor
rips into a mean grungified riff and Gaskill brings out the biggest guns
he has on drums. The final track on the album `Face The Day` is a ve-
ry angry song which belies Gaskill`s chronic introspectiveness, but it
does feature one of the meanest guitar riffs on the album. Probaly the
best guitar workout on the album, in terms of melody and sonic deliv-
ery, is the finale to the mostly acoustic ballad `No Love`. All in all, the
album is too convoluted for its own good, the songwriting just isn`t up
to scratch, but with the the help of Tabor, Gaskill can lay claim to hav-
ing a half respectable post-grunge metal/prog album under his name.
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