On our 2015 South Carolina music sampler we helped introduce King Vulture to the world with their buoyant song “Right”. It’s woahhhh opening is one that would instantly stick in your head. Since that debut they’ve focused on writing for this record, playing shows, and recording their début album, which will be out early 2017 on 10 Foot Woody Records.
Originally titled “That hymn I warned you of”, “Hymn” shows a different side of the band, a beautifully haunting six-minute circular song built like many traditional church hymns, each verse builds stronger as they tell two separate stories. Kristen Harris’ (The Prairie Willows) fiddle on the track weaves along with Kate Pyritz voice, much of the song is Harris fiddle and Pyritz singing together until the voices of Alex and Emily McCollum (Stagbriar) harmonize adding muscular emotion in the latter half. Lyrically the song tells two stories, one fictional and one more personal, revealing an internal tug-of-war between being open or closed to experiences, not turning away, but learning to endure. Learning to endure is an ancient and biblical teaching in itself, a sign of maturity as we learn to exist as faith is tested. The line “face that tall grass that slices your hands” is revealing, as it shows the sentiment of trying not to turn away from experiences.
Over the last year King Vulture’s live shows have given us a glimpse inside their debut record, with songs like “Hymn” that can silence a house show at Shredquarters as you close your eyes and just listen intently, to other songs that are at times spastic and raucous as guitarist Jared Pyritz style sometimes is.
