King James Version by Harvey Danger

King James Version, Harvey Danger's second album, finally surfaced on London-Sire on September 12, 2000, after a fight over the band's contract kept it in limbo. Most of it was cut in March and April 1999 with producer John Goodmanson, though the tinkering dragged on until February 2000. The payoff is a band that has shed the lo-fi scruff of Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? and gone roaming across a whole spread of rock styles, with songs that wrestle faith against skepticism.

"Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and "Authenticity" were the singles, and reviewers praised how far the band had grown. With almost no promotion behind it, the record stiffed, selling just 25,000 copies in the US by December 2004. It was their only major-label album and the last with drummer Evan Sult, and the band split when the tour wound down in April 2001. Since then a cult has grown up around it, PopMatters later counted it among the best albums of the 2000s, and in 2008 the band played it front to back for one night.

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