Kooks, The - Konk (Album)
» The Kooks announce Oz tour - June 2, 2008
Whenever I get a parcel stamped with ‘The Dwarf’, it’s always a mystery to what’s inside. I never know which CD that I listed will be contained in that little yellow envelope. Last week when I opened it to discover The Kooks new album “Konk”; I was very excited.
Inside In/Inside Out was a highlight of 2006 for me and my buds. The album was on continuous rotation and I was hoping “Konk” would be the same. And I thought it would be after i heard the first song.
See the Sun is a great start to the album, Luke sings desperately “I’ve been good to you” then it breaks out into some nice Kooks-esque riffs. But to top it is the single Always Where I Need To Be, oh how I have worn that song down. The entire week that was pretty much the only song I had on repeat, all those “do do do dododododo’s”, how could a girl resist?! However that is where the I landed myself in a pickle. A musical conundrum if you will; that song was on such heavy rotation because, well...the rest of the album just wasn’t as good.
Mr. Maker is okay, so that makes the 3 top songs listenable, but oh!, how it falls on it's cute little indie rock face. Do You Wanna is the most unnecessary song known to man/woman. The Kooks aren’t known for their profound lyrics or spellbinding ingenuity, they’re known for some catchy riffs and a descent good-time tune; but this is just disappointing. It’s well known that, as most rock musicians gain some ground, they also gain an ego (unless they already had one to begin with). So any song that asks ‘do you wanna make love to me/ I know you wanna/ I know you wanna make love to me’ changes a bands entire image.
It’s just a tad wanky.
That song was enough to turn me off the entire album. Perhaps I’m being a little harsh because it does pick up, I promise. Actually, all the songs that follow Do You Wanna are quite listenable. I think my point is,it just isn’t as good as their previous effort. After reading that they had around 80-90 songs prepared, its disappointing that some of the ones that appear on ‘Konk’ were chosen, I wonder if the rest were any better, and if not, it’s a worry that these ones were considered the best. They say second albums are always hard to perfect because its hard to live up to the expectations created from the first, the only comfort we can take in this is that the third album is bound to be better than this one.
