Cast your mind back to the summer of 2006. For second years, it was a summer of post A-Level bliss, of hope for the coming three or four years, of freedom. It was also the summer of the Kooks, of ‘Naïve’. Luke Pritchard and his tousle-haired chums rocked the socks off thousands at Reading and dominated every single play list Radio One had to offer. And then came Konk.
You see, the problem with the album is that it smacks, not of the freedom and promise offered by Inside In/Inside Out, but of a band which has sold off its ideals for a quickie in the loos. In my opinion, it’s because the album was recorded in America. The same happens to most potentially great British bands: the tragedy, the disappointment, the hangover caused by too many shots of liquor in LA bars; the smell of broken dreams, beer soaked clothes and sore eyes. Pete Doherty made this into a modern Romantic lyric. The Kooks just failed.
Their initial potential for greatness is disputable, of course, but since when has stature been about credibility? Most distressingly, nowhere is there a spark of genius; ‘Naïve’ has not been topped, or even approached. The riffs sound the same; the choppy indie chords have lost their spark. The only potential singles, ‘See the Sun’, ‘Always Where I Need To Be’ and ‘Mr Maker’ are fairly standard Radio One fodder. I expected more.
The only redeeming feature is ‘One Last Time’. It’s different; it’s not the intrusive, noisy and non-directional attempt at ‘Reading rock’. The rest, however, can be tragically encapsulated by Pritchards own lyrics: ‘I see the sun rising, but all I see is it fall, fall, fall…a plastic cup to be used and then disposed off’.
I can only assume they’re referring to a plastic Carling pint glass.
2 stars out of 5
The Kooks – “Konk”
