At the end of my review of The K’s debut album, I Wonder If The World Knows, I said that “they shouldn’t wait so long for the next one” (they released it a full seven years after their debut single), and they’ve heeded my advice, so here we are, a mere 15 months later with the short-awaited second offering.
And that first record saw them catapult into the national consciousness, with it reaching number 3 in the proper Album Charts, only outsold by The Libertines and Beyonce (heady company indeed). In fact it was the second biggest debut album of the whole year, so the pressure on this one should have heightened their ambitions, and they’ve enrolled some big hitters to help, it’s produced by Grammy Award winner Jim Lowe (Stereophonics, The Dandy Warhols) and mixed by Pete Hutchings (Royal Blood, Foals, Nothing But Thieves).
The four-piece, made up of Jamie Boyle (vocals), Ryan Breslin (guitar), Dexter Baker (bass) and Nathan Peers (drums) have also been hitting the heights in the live arena, with big homeland and European festivals.
So, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, nothing initially, Before I Hit The Floor and recent single Rat Poison are typical K’s rabble-rousers, all thrashing, chord-changing guitars and shout-along choruses, rattling along at quite the rate, that you can imagine being shouted back at them all summer long. But, as things progress, the novelty of their sound starts to wane, as songs blend into one another, and the progression between albums one and two, which (usually) naturally occurs in band’s careers taking off and an unwillingness to copy what’s gone before, just doesn’t arrive.
They are clever enough though to repeat the tricks of the debut by throwing in the odd, slow exception to the template, on this occasion the best example is the lovely, string-laden orchestral ballad, Helen, Oh I, but it’s soon back to plan A, all route one to indie-town.
The other side of the coin, of course, is the age-old argument about whether they need to change anything; are they not just giving their fans exactly what they want to hear, formulaic or otherwise? They’ve found their sound, and they are going to hammer it home, with no room for variety or suchlike. But there are currently hundreds of bands out there making a very similar racket to the K’s and if they don’t step it up next time out, they are in danger of being sucked back into the crowd.
Predictably, it’s more of the same until we get to the closer, Perfect Haunting, which along with the earlier ballad, makes the rest of it so frustrating, as they obviously have the talent in their lockers, they are just choosing to keep it there.
Following on from Wet Leg‘s recent average sophomore effort, this is definitely the month for disappointing follow-ups, but now The K’s should take some more chances, and some more time over record number three, and let those wings aim a bit further apart. As they have stuck to repeating album one, I shall once again quote from my review of it, “It’s clear there’s plenty of potential here.” and don’t get me wrong, if you’re already a fan, you’re gonna obviously love it.
But here lies this missed opportunity to turn that potential into something that would have pricked up the ears of those outside the existing fanbase.
