Titles are rarely more impeccably chosen than the one KING HANNAH have given their full-length debut. At once a humble clarification and a stubborn challenge, it not only sums up the duo’s single-minded vision and their determination to remain true to themselves, but also offers a glimpse of the wry, knowing humour lurking in the shadows of the record. Without this, of course, it might on occasions seem bleak. It opens, for instance, with ‘A Well-Made Woman’, Merrick teasing out a sinister walking guitar line to the rattle of a voodoo rhythm while Whittle whips up a growing storm of feedback. It ends, furthermore, with ‘It’s Me And You, Kid’, whose muffled melancholy is torn apart by waves of growling guitars first beckoned by a ‘Creep’-like twitch, with Merrick chanting – in defiance or resignation, it’s hard to say – “I’m all I’m ever gonna be” till it hurts. In short, it sounds at times like dusty jukebox 7” singles from the late 1950s played at half speed, and at others like it’s Cowboy Junkies forced to play The Trinity Sessions at knifepoint with a pounding whiskey hangover. Hello, darkness, our old friend.
If the magic began when they first got together, when Merrick and Whittle chime – which they do repeatedly on this debut – is where the magic actually happens. Written and then recorded with additional musicians Ted White, Jake Lipiec and Olly Gorman in just eight months, I’M NOT SORRY, I WAS JUST BEING ME is a bold, memorable, even startling document of a dream shared, an ambition fulfilled and a vision realised. No wonder the album ends with Whittle’s elated fuzz-guitar solo guiding us home after Merrick’s chant of “I’m all I’m ever gonna be.” There’s no mistaking this for resignation at all. It’s definitely defiance. Succinctly stated, effectively communicated, admirable, honest defiance: this is our destiny. Like KING HANNAH’s songs, it endures and inspires. Not that they’ll ever show off. That’s just not their style.
