King Ropes' fourth album carves out idiosyncratic intersections between rocky rock and rustic roots. After spending years in L.A. and Brooklyn, (Dave Hollier) returned (home), yearning to mingle vibrant urban energy with Montana’s vast rugged spaces. If Gram Parsons cast “cosmic country,” Hollier is cosmic rock-western; not Tex Ritter, more like spacy, discombobulated art rock and folk-pop. The most striking offerings, such as the slinky “Needles” or off-kilter “Big Man on TV,” combine whacked out, wide open atmospheres as vastly odd as his Mountain west. This concurrence of fragrant folk, chamber piano/violin beauty, americana, art-pop, and western limitlessness is as restless as the “The Last Best Place” itself.”

— Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover

KING ROPES RAGE AGAINST IDIOCY AND INACTION ON THE CAUSTIC “HALFWAY DID” (BPM PREMIERE) (Copy)

“Lo-fi Americana/psych outfit King Ropes evoke the striking and expansive landscapes of their native Montana, offering up a homebrew of caustic folk yarns and chunky garage rockers. The band deftly balances thrilling guitar riffs with more nuanced arrangements that crawl under your skin and take up permanent residence. Feedback roars with an unexpected ferocity across these tracks, jolting tempos into the upper atmospheres.

With their new single, Halfway Did, the band lopes through a selection of roughhewn rock territories, with Hollier’s compelling voice channeling the odd angles of Lou Reed and Bob Mould. The guitars are prickly and aggrieved as the drums batter away at your senses.”

— Joshua Pickard, Beats Per Minute

SEE: KING ROPES – ‘MAGICAL FLOATING EYE’: OUTTA THEIR MONTANA EYRIE WITH PLAYFUL ALT-ROCK

“[Magical Floating Eye] is certainly an intriguing door into [King Ropes'] softly weird world… There’s a little of Kurt Wagner’s husky, declamatory warmth and observation to their thang; a touch of the Malkmus absurds, a little Mr E, too; all wrapped up in a surreal flow and groovily slacker guitars and mellotron that seeps into your brain, epiphany and extrapolated imagery, free-associating lyrical flow: ‘A magical floating eye on a blue plate hanging on a wall in a motel in Deer Lodge, Montana / Might make you free …’”

— Chris Sawle, Backseat Mafia

KING ROPES TIES ON AN UNDER THE RADAR MUST HEAR VIA ‘GRAVITY AND FRICTION’ (INTERVIEW)

“[The] stellar but vastly under-appreciated rock outfit King Ropes' new album, Gravity and Friction, [offers] a goldmine of tracks that persevere to the true essence of what a meaningful indie band should and always be— eclectic, un-cliche, mood swinging, shades of psychedelic and yes— sad in all the best ways.”

— Shane Handler, Glide Magazine