We'll try to remain polite. It's not easy to remain polite when you're getting hit in the face with one brick after another. In fact, any attempt to speak politely and use complicated words about King Yosef is as futile as trying to bring up the subject without mentioning solid, concrete things. Swearing and the world of construction set the scene: something heavy, grey, unforgiving and really angry. We sensed it when Tayves Pelletier appeared on Youth Code's latest album, A Skeleton Key In The Doors of Depression: this guy is one to keep an eye on... If only to see the next blow coming: by dint of losing our teeth, our gums will cushion the impact! However, An Underlying Hum also hinted at his appetite for more atmospheric, almost melancholic things. Would King Yosef water down his wine?
So we're not quite sure whether he watered down anything, as he kicks things off with a bang on Feoil, opening his album with his possessed howl. In his mix of industrial metal, hardcore and trap, we always appreciate the emphasis on machines and the uncompromising nature of his delivery. King Yosef spews his guts and spits his venom. Fortunately, people who listen to industrial music are often a bit bald, either to look cyberpunk or because they're old, because the others will need a comb. These machines grind us up with an energy that is as intimidating as it is deeply enjoyable, each scream seeming to come from the depths of the young man's soul, which we can guess is a little disturbed. Or at least troubled.
Godflesh's roughness is definitely there, and the industrial/hardcore mix may evoke Code Orange, but King Yosef is follows his own path by dusting off the genre in his own way, with sincerity. While his compatriots in Black Magnet attack with similar rage, King Yosef is less backward-looking in his references. And then, between two savage assaults, he gives us a breather, lifting our heads out of the water for a few seconds before diving back in, working on atmospheres that darken the picture a little more and, above all, enrich it. King Yosef doesn't make music for partying, yet you almost feel like dancing here and there. Thus, Glimmer, featuring Holy Fawn as a guest, offers a heady beat and some more introspective vocals, like an apocalyptic and chaotic variation on what HEALTH has been doing for the last ten years. King Yosef also embraces trip-hop influences, which can be heard, for example, at the beginning of Lichen, in Wither, and during the hypnotic Blue Morning, and which manage to peek through like a blade of grass growing among the rubble of very large, ruined things.
Spire of Fear is an extremely satisfying album. There are songs that speak to the soul. King Yosef, on the other hand, not only screams more than he speaks, but he also speaks directly to our guts, our intestines, our most primitive instincts. The first reaction is to be left breathless, the second is to scream ‘FUCK YEAH’ (ah well, there you go, swearing) in the face of the excessive aggression that hits us right in the face. And then, little by little, we are delighted to hear the nuances, we are surprised by a second part of the album that tries different things, reveals a more contemplative side before concluding in a chaos of unleashed machines with its title track.
Above all, we are satisfied with King Yosef's approach. He knows his classics, he honours them, but he does not seek to copy them. What he offers is his own thing, something deeply personal and cathartic that doesn't seek to slavishly imitate illustrious idols or pander to his audience (even if, almost as a joke, Everythings Point of Origin, the bonus track, hits us with a bass line that gets us moving and an EBM-style intro before launching into some martial riffs à la Rammstein). King Yosef takes industrial metal and delivers his own version, raw but also polished, sensitive and spontaneous. This guy isn't here to entertain you: if you dance, it's like primates, naked around a fire, furiously smashing things around you. He's here to crush us, to scream what's in his heart, to petrify us or take us with him and, ultimately, to seize our souls to feed his machines. Not everyone realises this yet because the uncompromising form can (rightly) be frightening, but here we have a major artist of the genre. Never has a breath of fresh air tasted so much like a bunker sinking at the bottom of your throat.
