Review: King Krule's spooky, angry musings at the Fonda

1/10

Something of a modern-day Brigitte Bardot, Georgia May Jagger is the youngest daughter of supermodel Jerry Hall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Jagger. She’s taken a liking to modeling, with her signature asset: a gap between her two front teeth. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

2/10

Zoe Kravitz took the my-dad’s-a-rock-star-and-I’ll-be-one-too-thing to heart. As the lead singer of Elevator Flight, Zoe and her mates have performed on the same stages as the Roots and the Black Keys. She’s also acted in “X-Men: First Class” (2011), “After Earth” (2013) and “Californication.” ( Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for H&M)

3/10

Kelly Osbourne was introduced to the world as a harshly honest, tatted teen on MTV’s reality show “The Osbournes.” She turned to music, launching two albums: “Shut Up” (2002) and “Sleeping in the Nothing” (2005), but has since evolved. She now gives style advice on E!’s “Fashion Police.” (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Variety)

4/10

Early on, Lily Collins took an interest in journalism and acting. She wrote the “NY Confidential” column for Elle Girl and was a Nickelodeon TV correspondent. Now an actress, she’s appeared in “The Blind Side,” (2009), “Mirror Mirror” (2012) and “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” (2013). (Abraham Caro Marin / AP Photo)

5/10

Kimberly Stewart shot to fame as Paris Hilton’s club-hitting sidekick. These days, she’s a mother to young Delilah, whose father is Puerto Rican actor-producer Benicio Del Toro. (Danny Martindale / Getty Images)

6/10

A paternity test revealed that Daisy Lowe was rock royalty. Since then she’s been handpicked by designer Karl Lagerfeld to walk the Chanel runway and later modeled for Nanette Lepore, Vivienne Westwood and Burberry. She also posed topless for Esquire and nude for Playboy. (Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images)

7/10

Fashion designer Stella McCartney didn’t need to lean on her father’s Beatles fame. At 16, she interned with French fashion designer Christian Lacroix and went on to study fashion design in London. Stella became chief designer of French line Chloe and then launched her own popular label. (Peter Kramer / Getty Images for North America)

8/10

Theodora began modeling at 14 years old for a Tommy Hilfiger campaign alongside Mick Jagger’s daughter, Lizzy. Since then she’s been snapped by world-renowned photographers and scored the covers of Glamour Italy, Nylon UK and Rolling Stone. Her younger sister Alexandra plays the model cards as well. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

9/10

Frances Bean Cobain’s mother, Courtney Love, supposedly used heroin during her pregnancy, so Frances was taken away. She also visited her father, Kurt Cobain, in rehab until he died. Love later disowned Frances, and photos of her taken by YSL’s Hedi Slimane also drew a spotlight. (Steve Granitz / WireImage)

10/10

Peaches wrote and starred in a documentary about herself as a teenager, “Peaches Geldof: Teenage Mind” (2005). That was after photos of her using heroin hit the Web. In addition to taking care of her two sons, she hosted TV specials. Geldorf was found dead in her home on April 7. She was 25. ( Mike Marsland / WireImage)

By August Brown

Dec. 19, 2013 1:05 PM PT

Onstage, 19-year-old Archy Marshall looked like a surly high-schooler on class portrait day: a too-big brown sport coat, a thrift-shop tie and a perpetual discontented sneer.

But whenever he opened his mouth at his headlining show Wednesday night at the Fonda Theatre, the wounded growl that came out had a rough wisdom all its own.

Marshall’s project, King Krule, doesn’t have many peers in contemporary music. His gravelly slur gets him deserved Tom Waits allusions; his torrent of bummed-out, street-level lyricism puts him in the line of English greats like the Fall and the Jam. The music on his debut, “6 Feet Beneath the Moon,” almost sounds like angry smooth jazz -- moody diminished and augmented guitar chords, played without distortion but with a post-punky panic.

He’s got fans in Beyoncé and Frank Ocean, and Wednesday’s set proved why many more are likely to follow them.

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As a performer, Marshall pulls off the intriguing trick of evoking teenage emotions with adult jaundice. Unlike his fellow young wordy U.K. rock peers Arctic Monkeys, there’s no nightlife glamour or zippy social commentary here.

Songs such as “Baby Blue” and “Rock Bottom” feel like youth as it’s actually lived by the young -- bored, disenchanted, sad and dreamy. Marshall’s accent rivals that of the Pogues’ Shane MacGowan for boozy, lonely inflection (though presumably he couldn’t get served at the Fonda bar), and between songs he’d occasionally have hard-to-follow shouting fits that put the audience on a real edge.

But there’s a tenderness and thoughtfulness to his arrangements that kept King Krule from just becoming the latest Angry Young Man. His three-piece backing band has a jazz education, and used these small tools to build a subtly evocative web of feelings.

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In the hands of the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, a song like “The Krockodile” with its hook of “I can’t see my eyes” would come off like a blast of grotty, punky subway air. But with Krule’s time-bending pace and dark-shaded chords, Marshall came off more like a teen-guy Cassandra, seeing an endless pit of isolation ahead for us all.

Sometimes, his debts to jammy jazz-fusion went on a little long, and some concision in the writing and playing would have sharpened the emotional fangs that these songs have at their core. But who knew the time was so right for a disaffected jazz-punk balladeer in a baggy suit?

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