Saturday, May 17, 2008

Album Review: The Kooks, Konk

To sum up the Kooks sophomore effort in a word, meh. Not that the album isn't good, it definitely has some stand out tracks, the first single Always Where I Need To Be of course, Shine On, Love It All, amongst others are all catchy pop songs that will delight fans to casual listeners. The thing about this album is that for me at least, it doesn't live up to the hype. I was a fan of The Kook's first album, and Konk (dumb name by the way), doesn't doesn't quite live up to it's predescessor. As I said before, there are quick catchy pop songs on this record, however there are more than a few songs which I find myself searching for the "skip" button before they even get three chords into it. Lyrically, The Kooks are still writing songs about girls and playful romps under the covers however while this worked on the first album, now it just feels a little immature. Granted I don't think The Kooks should be singing about Darfur or big oil or other heavy political issues, their songwriting capabilities, musically at least, would make such songs feel silly and contrived. Merely all I'm asking for is a little growth, you can only sing about tits and ass for so long (check the cringe worthy Do You Wanna? if you really want to see what I mean) before it starts to get old. So if you liked their first album, you'll be sure to like most of the songs present on this one, however if you found yourself wanting a little more substance over their last effort, you might want to just grab the singles.

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