King Creosote - Flick The Vs Album Review

Review of King Creosote's album Flick The Vs

With songs about nosey neighbours, mental illness and small town homophobia, Fife-based folk artist Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote) decides to get a few things off his chest with this latest album on Domino.

Featuring his accentuated Scottish vocals wrenched with melancholy, frequent use of electronics, drums, guitars, percussion, keyboards, piano and a wealth of folk instruments such as: accordion, mandolin, harmonium and hammered dulcimer, Flick The Vs is a very eclectic offering. The album is unsurprisingly downbeat, but this outlook is offset by a sense of playfulness and the fiery attitude portrayed in some of the lyrics (and album title, of course).

Highlights include the pop-tastic opener 'No One Had It Better', the wild electronic sadness of 'Two Frocks At A Wedding' and the massive brooding orchestral sound of closer 'Saw Circular Prowess'. Undeniably, there are a couple of fillers, but overall King Creosote's Flick The Vs is a definite success story.

Colin Burrill