Premiere: King Shelter, ‘Paradigm’

Kevin Bronson on March 13th, 2019

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King Shelter roared out of Orange County in 2016 with a sound they call “salad rock,” a melange of interwoven, swirling guitars and bombastic directness. Their 2017 EP “Failure” satiated fans thirsty for alternative rock with meat on its bones, and the follow-up, last year’s “$HAME” EP, stretched those boundaries a little bit. In fact, maybe too much?

“We poured ourselves into $HAME, trying to make something new and push alt-rock,” frontman Taylor Hecocks says of his work with principal collaborator David Noble. “It was ignored and misunderstood by the industry. My integrity, my dreams felt compromised.”

King Shelter return this week with their third EP in as many years, the wryly titled “Sellout.” Made at Red Bull Studios in L.A., Hecocks and Noble channel their frustration into what they call “an electric sketch of internal conflict.” It is no coincidence that the EP starts with a dream-like, two-minute “introduction” that features voices lamenting that they “don’t hear a single” and urging the band to “make a hit.”

“Paradigm” sounds like one. “Don’t you think I try / to be your paradigm,” Hecocks sings as stinging, ringing guitars sparkle their way into a tsunami of a chorus. If King Shelter aims to be atop rock’s next wave, and drown the doubters in the process, “Paradigm” is a good start.

||| Stream: “Paradigm”