King Krule announces new album, releases single

King Krule announced the release of upcoming album Man Alive! today with a self-directed music video for new single '(Don't Let The Dragon) Draag On.' Man Alive! is set for release on February 21.

Archy Marshall embraces his long-time love of cinema in his first foray into directing. The music video pulls influences from Carl Theodor Dyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc with dark black-and-white visuals of Marshall being burned at the stake.

Man Alive! follows his critically-acclaimed sophomore album, 2017's The Ooz. Marshall packs the record full of sonic ambition and compositional skill, as well as corrosive lyricism and lurid social observation. He fearlessly blurs genre divisions, dragging the listener through the trashiest punk experience one minute and ushering in a forward-looking sound the next. Marshall calls the title an exclamation about the times we live in, but avoids politicizing it too much.

"More and more," he explained, "I've been put off by the intention of speaking about what's going on in society as a black-and-white thing, or trying to get to the bottom of why we’re in this position. So the album is mostly made up of snapshots and observations. There are a lot of real-time-and-place moments, songs talking about walking through the park just over there and getting a head injury, then there are other tracks which are just simplicity, looking at one particular situation and reflecting on it as somehow being super-profound."

Marshall has found the record to be therapeutic. "I was always empowered by lyricism and getting my aggression out in some way, or any kind of emotion," he said. "That has always been a process for me. This time I felt like I had gotten out of a dark place, and I was on a high."

King Krule will embark on a tour across Europe and the U.S. in support of the album's release, including a Dublin date at the Olympia Theatre on March 19.

Watch the music video for '(Don't Let The Dragon) Draag On' and check out the rest of his European tour dates below:

3 March – Brussels, A.B
4 March – Paris, L’Olympia
5 March – Amsterdam, Melkweg
7 March – Copenhagen, K.B Hallen
8 March – Berlin, Columbiahalle
19 March – Dublin, Olympia
21 March – Glasgow, Barrowland
22 March – Manchester, Albert Hall
24 March – London, O2 Academy Brixton
25 March - London, O2 Academy Brixton