EAR CANDY

Ear Candy is the sixth album from King's X. It's pretty much business as usual continuing in the same vein of melodic heavy rock, sometimes metal as their 5 previous albums, the only difference being a slight drop in the overall quality of the songs.

There's still much to enjoy here though; opener The Train and Sometime are both classic King's X with their instantly recognisable style of melodic heavy riffing, soulful vocals and Beatles influenced harmonies. A Box and Lies in the Sand is the band in more laid back style, Ty Tabors chiming guitar arpeggios to the fore in a similar vein to Goldilox and Summerland from their first 2 albums respectively. Looking for Love and Run are both hard hitting powerful rockers and Mississippi Moon with Tabor taking lead vocals is another strong melodic piece. Picture is a late album highlight with it's quiet verse/heavy chorus, a style used a lot by the band over the years and an extended psychedelic instrumental section making it the longest track at 5.34 minutes; yes most of these songs are short and to the point. Life Going By is a fine album closer, Tabor taking lead vocals again on this mid paced powerful melodic piece with some excellent harmony singing.

Ear Candy is a very good King's X album, though overall not quite matching previous albums, but a handful of tracks can stand shoulder to shoulder with, if not quite their best, then the majority of material before. It's also a far superior album to what was to come over the next few releases. 3.5 stars.