This is Belly's first album and it contains a lot of pop classics. My favourites are Low, which is hauntingly beautiful, Feed the Tree, which is simply in my head because of radio overplay, and the title track. Belly, in this incarnation, is Tanya Donelly (vocals, guitars), Thomas Gorman (guitars, organ), Chris Gorman (drums), and Fred Abong (bass). Donelly, who was previously in the Throwing Muses, decided she was better off doing her own thing and, after a short stint with the Breeders, went on to front her own band. Judging by the stuff in the album, this was a wise decision on her part for both Belly's and the Muses' sake. I thought that the Throwing Muses, with the real Ramona, were deviating too much from Kristin Hersh's vision, mainly due to Donelly's poppy songwriting. This way not only do the Muses retain their sound, but Belly have produced what I consider one of the best pop albums of the 90s.
The musical talent of Tanya Donelly previously shined briefly in only a few instances as she wandered from the Throwing Muses (particularly in The Real Ramona, where she wrote most of the stuff) to the Breeders (she co-founded the group and recorded Pod with them), before she went on to form Belly. When I heard Belly's first album Star, I thought it was excellent---it marked a reasonable change in direction from previous attempts by Donelly and thought it showcased her talents very well. King follows the same vein and contains 11 great pop tunes, all of them catchy, but not so trivial that you get bored after a few listens. Donelly's characteristic voice and Chris Gorman's drumming stand out the most in my opinion. I like the track L'il Ennio a lot.