The Cliks — Dirty King

Dirty King

Warner

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

06/26/2009 2:36pm

Dirty King was born of the frustration The Cliks' frontman Lucas Silveira encountered while on tour with bands like The Cult over the last few years. Silveira and company had few breaks on the road and were often left completely drained because of their schedule, which meant Dirty King was mostly written quickly over two weeks of pre-production in the studio.

While that might sound like a disaster in the making, it's definitely not the case. Some writers produce their best work while under extreme pressure, and that seems to be the case with Silveira, since Dirty King is a huge step up from 2007's Snakehouse both lyrically and musically. It proves The Cliks have much more to offer than Cult sound-alike songs.

Stylistically, Dirty King is all over the map. The title track is a surf rock-influenced number with a killer hook in the chorus, which leads into the jangly "Not Your Boy." That happens to be right next to "Red And Blue," which draws from The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever."

The melodies and harmonies on single "Career Suicide" make it sound like it belongs on an emo record, but that’s not a diss because it's a thousand times better than anything Taking Back Sunday will ever write. The staccatoed guitar riff in "We Are The Wolverines" also does a good job demonstrating Silveira's understated punk influences.

Dirty King proves The Cliks deserve a much wider audience and will hopefully see them break free of that "queer band" label they've picked up because they have a lot to offer everyone.

Get it from