Essex, England is famous on Brit TV for reality TV shows portraying residents of the county as being sufficiently lacking in educational merit to be able to answer pressing questions like, "Which way is up?" without a significant pause for thought.  Whilst the British TV watching public clearly enjoy watching the blissful ignorance of the beautiful but frankly thick as pigshit youth of Essex, the same masses are no doubt equally blissfully unaware of the mighty monolith of metal that is The King Is Blind who hark from that very same part of the world.

Steve Tovey (vocals) is an internet acquaintance of mine (as in we have never met in real life but we like each other's Facebook and Instagram posts regularly and exchanged post for a couple of years on another forum).  As such I have been aware of the band from their inception, enjoying thoroughly their first two demos and EP as they churned out releases consistently over 18 months.  By the time they dropped their debut full length "Our Father" in 2016 they had already become a well established outfit with their line up of former members of Extreme Noise Terror, Cradle of Filth and Entwined.

I was all over "Our Father" like an STD on anyone of Motley Crue's genitalia during the eighties.  It was a proper journey too taking the listener from the familiarity of death metal initially before diving off into blackened passages and "core" edged crevices whilst being utterly monolithic throughout.

For the follow up TKIB have managed to punch any doubts of a sophomore dip firmly out of the ring and onto the bar at the back of the arena seating.  Not only is "We Are the Parasite, We Are The Cancer" an obvious step up from its predecessor, it also one of the most consistent records I have heard in a long time.  Whereas "Our Father" took you in all directions and lost you on more than one occasion in its majesty the result was not as memorable as you might have initially thought and as a consequence you did get feel for it being more of a collection of songs as opposed to an album from end to end.

"We Are the Parasite..." is a much more consistent and solidly written record with a real direction that remains obvious throughout.  It has been constructed from the ground up on foundations of riffs that could have your teeth down the back of your throat quicker than Mike Tyson on a night out in Newcastle.  The riff to "The Sky Is A Mirror (Plague : Luxuria" will knock you the fuck out quicker than Iron Mike ever could hope to with the power of it alone, never mind the relentless fury with which it is delivered.

The scathing blackened picks of "Embers From A Dying Son (Plague : Gula)" will exfoliate you faster than any beautician wired on crack could with a seaweed mask and a bar of coal infused soap.  The build of "The Burden of Their Scars" becomes ever more oppressive as it crawls up your spine and grips your neck before Tovey's insane ramblings seep into your ear.  Even former Bolt Thrower (and current Memoriam) growler Karl Willets makes an appearance midway through the album.

For a band in only the fourth year of existence to produce a piece of solid and thoroughly entertaining metal on just their second full length is testimony no doubt to the quality present within their ranks as "we Are The Parasite..." is clearly the sound of a band loving life together having gelled perfectly already so early into their career.