Review. The Kooks - Konk

Apr 16 2008

The follow up to debut album Inside In/Inside Out is more of the same, but still hits the spot.

By Sam Dimmer

SOME bands lurch from shoe gazing indie rock to off-the-wall experimentalism in two albums. Radiohead went from making music that made people rock out, to making music that only space-age robots can understand. That's fair enough and if any band wants to succeed they have to evolve, but I draw the line at the pretentious self-indulgent garbage the Oxford band have produced. Perhaps The Kooks listened to Kid A and learnt a vital lesson - too much change is a bad thing. And as a result we get Konk, their second studio album, which could all sit happily on debut LP Inside In/Inside Out. That's not really a bad thing, because their debut was a pretty special album, chocked full of tunes that made boys dance and girls swoon. But is it really a good thing to evolve so little, or does the tried and tested Kooks formula have the ability to last for two albums? Yes and no. On first listen the album is pretty uneventful. The glaringly obvious riff-heavy rock monster Do You Wanna, and single Always Where I Need to Be stand out. The album does grow though, and before long I was singing away in my little car like my life depended on it. Five or six listens later I can truly appreciate that The Kooks are a fabulous band, with a distinctive lead-singer and a guitarist with a knack for delightfully catchy moments. And Konk, despite the naff title, is well worth the money. Experimenting has a place, and some bands suffer for not changing, but The Kooks' debut was so good that they didn't need to. A third album of material like this might be pushing it - but right now they have got more tunes in the first five tracks of Konk than Radiohead have managed since OK Computer. And you don't need a super-computer to tell you that. 7/10