One Man Band

Album review

Just a year after the excellent concentrate of Northern soul “Change the Show” (2022), Miles Kane is back to business with a fifth album. The Englishman hasn’t wasted time in finding his way back to the studio, the brand-new Kempton Street Studios in Liverpool, and with his cousin James Skelly of The Coral on production, he’s gotten back to work with the guitar at the center of his world.

“Making the album back in Liverpool with my family really helped to bring this out of me,” Kane explains. “We left no stone unturned. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards, and this album helped me rediscover why I picked up a guitar in the first place. This album is like a brand new, yet somehow familiar leather jacket. A comforting melting pot of all the music that has inspired and continues to inspire me every day.” Amidst its dancefloor rock (in particular the two singles “Baggio” and a very 2000s rock “Troubled Son”), Kane swerves into soul (the dancey “Doubles”) and blues-rock with “Never Taking Me Alive”, which is reminiscent of the Black Keys (“Lonely Boy”), all while the languid “Ransom” and the guitar-vocal ballad “Scared of Love” provide a soft landing. A successful return to roots.