Album Review: More Kicks - "Punch Drunk"

 

Regulars on the London power-pop scene for a while now, I'll admit that this is the first time I've listened to one of More Kicks' albums although I've seen the band live a couple of times at a few power-pop gigs when I lived in the Smoke and enjoyed frontman James Sullivan's solo lockdown album Light Years when it surfaced last year so I was interesting to see what this one sounded like.

The obvious template for More Kicks is the Buzzcocks - they peddle a similarly skewed take on the whole power-pop formula with their individual stamp on it as evidenced on the way opener Hurts Like Hell goes from a bright sunshiny singalong to the sinister spoken word over the closing minute or so. In Love and Terminal Love (the latter sadly not a cover of the Boys classic) are even more Shelley influenced with their tales of love and angst over hyperventilating riffs while Animal and Seven Ways both have a strident almost Stooges-esque feel to them with their I Wanna Be Your Dog style riffs although there's enough melodicism in there to keep them in line with the rest of the album (the latter even goes into a Beatles-esque singalong towards the end which is a bit unexpected!) The stripped back Got Lucky shows another side to their oeuvre too with its haunting keyboards and almost funereal feel.

Side two has a more urgent back-to-basics feel to it with only one of the six songs crossing the three minute mark but there's still some good stuff on there such as the '60s-influenced pop of Colour Me Stupefied and the garage rock snottiness of Come Home and Good Enough. Rest Of Our Lives even has a bit of an early Elvis Costello feel to it while closer Goodnight Goodnight is another mournful downbeat number beat around Sullivan's distorted riff and plaintive vocals.

If power-pop's your thing then I'm guessing that Punch Drunk is probably on your shopping list already but even if not, this is a good album with an impressive amount of variety and heartfelt lyrics which combine to make a good effort. Definitely recommended.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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