My Lemon Honey

King Krule “Stoned Again”

“Stoned Again” moves along on the slow drag of a grungy bass riff that serves as the numb, deadened center of a song that’s otherwise expressing extreme depression, paranoia, and grief. The arrangement sketches out multiple levels of awareness – the guitar and sax parts fill in a melancholy atmosphere that’s like a dimming perception of the bleakness of the outside world, while Archy Marshall’s vocals cover conscious thoughts and feelings. He splits his vocal into two overlapping parts – the first a semi-rapped stream of conscious ramble contrasting memories of innocence with a pathetic and desperate present, and the second mostly wordless screams of anguish. The effect is similar to superimposing in film, and it’s up to the listener to decide whether it’s meant to evoke a collapsed timeline of emotions or the feelings just under the surface of the coherent thoughts. Marshall’s voice is unrestrained in both performances but particularly impressive in the foregrounded part where his words seem to tumble out of his mouth and verses end with him shifting his phrasing into a bark of disgust.

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