King's X Out Of The Silent Planet LP 1988 NEAR MINT VINYL

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King's X

Out Of The Silent Planet

Megaforce Worldwide 78_18251 LP 1988 (USA)

Out of the Silent Planet is the debut release from King's X. The title of the album comes from that of a book by C.S. Lewis, an author favored by band members Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskill. "Out of the Silent Planet" is also the title of the first track from the follow up album Gretchen Goes to Nebraska.

King's X is one of those groups that fits into no category whatsoever, thereby rendering them easily dismissable by ignorant music critics and commercial radio stations alike. For a brief time, they were every musician's favorite band, but their parting of ways with a major label relegated them to obscurity (except for their devoted fan base.) If you're curious about great music, not just metal in general, but truly great composition that also rocks out the way metal should, begin here- with King's X debut.

The most impressive thing about Out of the Silent Planet is how fully-realized the band sounds on their debut. Granted, they had been playing for years as a different band, and producer Sam Taylor stepped up their game considerably before releasing this album, but still- beginning with the first track, they already sound like no one else. All of the elements they went on to develop further- their low, low tones, the harmonizing, the eclectic prog-rock time signatures- all of them are set in motion here. If for nothing else, it's worth listening to for that.

But the songs are actually quite good. In the New Age is a great scene setter, and more of an epic journey than a hit single, something the band explores deeper in subsequent releases. Most of the other tracks do seem to be posturing as hits, though, with fairly standard running times and catchy hooks, but the hooks are damn catchy, and the craftsmanship is amazing for a first effort. Goldilox, Power of Love, Sometimes, King, and Shot of Love would all be big radio hits in a fair and just universe, especially the uber-singable Shot of Love.

On the other hand, Wonder is much darker both lyrically and sonically, and really shows off their chops, both with Doug's vocal range and the band's metal rocking abilities- as do the rockers What is This? and Visions- which covers almost all the songs on this album. It's no wonder Kerrang! rated this the top metal album of 1988. If you can bring yourself back to that point in time when Poison and Winger were ruling the metal airwaves, you can appreciate how exciting it was to hear something like this. Only Living Colour's Vivid (released that same year) offered anything as musically exciting as what you hear here.

Compared to future King's X releases, Out of the Silent Planet is a little tame... but that's only a testament to how great the band became. On its own, the album is solid all the way through, full of songs most other bands only wish they could come up with. Definitely worth tracking down!

Tracklist
A1 In The New Age 5:23
A2 Goldilox 4:41
A3 Power Of Love 4:57
A4 Wonder 4:13
A5 Sometimes 3:40
B1 King 3:01
B2 What Is This? 3:48
B3 Far, Far Away 4:14
B4 Shot Of Love 3:15
B5 Visions 5:11

Phonographic Copyright (p) – Megaforce Records, Inc.
Copyright (c) – Jetydosa Music – 1987
Manufactured By – Atlantic Recording Corporation
Recorded At – Rampart Studios
Mastered At – Masterdisk

Bass – Doug Pinnick
Drums – Jerry Gaskill
Engineer – Steve Ames
Guitar – Ty Tabor
Mastered By – Bob Ludwig
Producer – King's X, Sam Taylor
Vocals – Doug Pinnick, Jerry Gaskill, Ty Tabor

Atlantic Cat Number on the spine of the cover.
Comes with printed inner sleeve.

Vinyl is NEAR MINT  in a printed paper inner sleeve in GOOD condition (minor water damage), in a picture sleeve in GOOD condition (spine wear, light water damage lower corner)

Note About Shipping To The U.S.
We are located in Canada, but have registered ourselves on eBay.com instead of eBay.ca because it gives us significantly better global exposure.  The problem with this is that eBay wants us to charge shipping appropriate to US, where media mail and other options make for fairly reasonable delivery costs. We tried it for a while but ended up losing money on shipping or having to cancel the orders because we couldn't afford to ship for those rates. To manage this we have set the US shipping to run a calculator based on an American location (we chose Plattsburgh as fairly close) and charging according to UPS pricing.  This avoids the cancellation issue, but appears to the buyer to be a prohibitive shipping cost and misrepresents the shipping as being only expedited. If you give us your postal code we will see if we can offer a more reasonable option, but generally we can get a single LP by air to most places in the continental US for $11, a few bucks less for ground.
Thanks for shopping Sir Helmitt,
Jeff Green, e-sales