Album Review: The Kooks – Never/Know
2 min read
UK outfit The Kooks have carved a solid niche in the indie music scene over the past two decades. With singer Luke Pritchard’s distinctive voice and their eclectic array of genre influences they marked their spot early on with their debut Inside In / Inside Out, which harboured hits like Naive, She Moves In Her Own Way, and Ooh La. Seven albums later, they’ve returned with their latest offering Never/Know.
Never Know hits us first with a somewhat alternative take on what the band is known for. Groovy drums and infectious riffs, but contained within an interesting mix that includes edited vocals layers and ambient noise moments, most audible in the bridge. The chorus itself seems to end too soon each time, but it leaves you on edge waiting for it to come back round. It’s the complete opposite on following track Sunny Baby, which takes a more straightforward approach but is no less rhythmically catchy. The song is an out and proud driving anthem for sunny days and convertibles. If They Could Only Know continues the nostalgia of the band’s early sound, driving instrumentation and lyrics of missing past times and people forming a protective indie rock cocoon around the listener.
Compass Will Fracture begins like a 90s Red Hot Chili Peppers tune but transitions into a heavy chorus and light atmospheric post-chorus that mirror each other wonderfully and feel uniquely Kooks. Tough At The Top has a dub flare in the verses, while Let It Go mixes this with elements of old school reggae. Their surprise cover of Wings’ Arrow Through Me takes the off-kilter nature of the original and turns it into a sprawling indie track turning the trumpet instrumental into a light piano and voice motif and completing the transformation with fun backing vocals. The album concludes with the 70s-tinged Talk About It, a low-key and airy ending that neither puts a full stop in the record nor leaves you wanting more.
Never/Know is an interesting addition to The Kook’s discography. It both hones in on and experiments with the sounds that they have come to be known for, as well as including snippets of their influences in the case of the Wings cover. It’s a subtle and well made collection of songs, some of which will become staples of their live set for years to come.
Writer and Musician, Ryan Bulbeck has been published with a number of online publications, and has worked with a myriad of great artists, both as a performer, and as a producer. His most recent band The 295 are still active, playing shows around the UK.
