King Falcon’s “Shake! Shake! Shake!”

You won’t hear any synthesizers, nor artificially-born melodies or grooves in any part of King Falcon’s “Shake! Shake! Shake!.” There are no bloated basslines, and even though it’s an up-tempo number (albeit a strutting one), there isn’t a lurid efficiency to the beats that suggests they were selected out of a pre-recorded lineup. King Falcon, like most of us, have heard and seen enough of the dribble to know what not to do in their debut single and its music video this July; they’ve got the moves to shut down the competition with nothing more than a mere electric melody and some rhythmic pulsations that inspire earthquakes if played past the ‘6’ mark on the volume knob. They’re all brawn in the studio, and aside from the sharp lyrical wit that ties together the loose ends in “Shake! Shake! Shake!,” they could seemingly care less about the conventions of pop/rock in a post-millennium world. No matter what your age or personal taste in music, you’ve got to admire this pair’s moxie or, at the very least, their desire to preserve what little integrity the rock n’ roll genre has been left with in the year 2020.

The grooves here are undeniably as danceable as we could have asked for them to be, and while I would definitely call them one of the more important elements in the structuring of the chorus, I don’t believe they’re the main draw in “Shake! Shake! Shake!.” If anything is the sonic centerpiece in this track, it’s the throbbing guitar melody, which fuses together with the vocal in the most thrilling of moments to create a harmony left untreated in the final mix.

This edginess in the dual-attack from the vocal and guitar parts was apparently an intentional creation, but even if it wasn’t, King Falcon certainly benefit from the layer of angst that it contributes to the pot. The video is wonderfully barebones and devoid of the props that usually annoy critics like myself when checking out new content in rock and hip-hop; it makes me want to see this band live, which is more than I can say about a lot of the other videos I’ve had the chance to review in the past few months.

Despite the limited offerings from rock these days, this new single and video from King Falcon is a good choice for anybody who misses the best parts of the genre’s glory days. King Falcon show off a lot of big guns in this track, but I do think there’s a sense of melodicism in their sound that isn’t being exploited to its full potential just yet. They’ve got all the time in the world to continue cultivating the style they’ve introduced all of us to in “Shake! Shake! Shake!,” and if I were them, I wouldn’t hurry back into the recording studio. Great music takes a little extra attention from its creators, and for what this band is already working with, they shouldn’t rush anything about their artistry at all.

 Mindy McCall