I used to like The Kooks. I tolerated their Brit School heritage, whiny vocals and instant elevation to reality TV background music. I managed to ignore the fact that frontman Luke Pritchard dated women far more attractive than I could ever achieve, even though he resembled a beatnik Hobbit. They might have looked like a trampy Toploader but The Kooks could produce great pop.
The Kooks’ debut album Inside in/Inside Out was full of catchy melodies and dominated radio playlists and middle class picnics during the summer of 2006. Your mum listened to it while doing housework and your sister played it on Saturday night. Junk of The Heart, by contrast, is the soundtrack of your bed wet regret and your family want nothing to do with it. Just five years from their arrival and The Kooks have produced a soppy comedown album. Pritchard has admitted that parts of the album are inspired by his cocaine abuse and becoming self obsessed in the years following his success. The problem isn’t cocaine, however. Junk of The Heart sounds like it was written by a man smoking an oboe size bong, rambling about the fact that Mischa Barton dumped him before second base.
There’s electronic bits, orchestral strings to beef up skinny acoustic tracks and waves of melodic sadness and cryptic confessions. You imagine Pritchard considered sampling the sound of his own tears until his record label stepped in and slipped something more fun in his bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Bizarrely, the gritty Junk of The Heart album title is accompanied by ‘happy’ appearing in brackets on the track listing. The hapless record label probably did that too.
The album cover suggests a return to the joyous pop of She Moves in Her Own Way. There’s a girl, arms aloft in aviators, blowing feel good vibes in your face. She hints at the joy of Glastonbury sunshine, tent sex and strawberry cider inhaled through novelty straws. So it comes as a surprise to discover there’s songs on the album called Fuck The World Off, Killing Me and Runaway. Even the new John Lewis advert has opted for 2008 single Shine On instead of this awkward mix of misery and experimental pop. Pritchard channels Chris Martin on a few songs but never manages to connect to our emotional mainframe or plant memorable tunes in our brains. Perhaps as a concession to the acoustic whine, we’re given Eskimo Kiss which talks about girls as roses, sunflowers and diamonds in Hey Jude style but by then it’s too late, we’ve heard enough self pity wrapped in drab B side songs about failed relationships.
Tags: junk of the heart, kooks, luke pritchard, review
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