What a busy week for music! Following 2018’s “Let’s Go Sunshine”, The Kooks are back with their sixth album “10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark” will be released on July 22nd. They seem to be releasing it in an interesting way, with an EP containing 3 tracks titled “Connection” out now. The first 3 songs are “Connection”, “Jesse James” and “Modern Days”.

 

Tracklisting:

 

1. Connection

2. Cold Heart

3. Jesse James

4. Closer

5. Sailing On A Dream

6. Beautiful World

7. Modern Days

8. Oasis

9. 25

10. Without A Doubt

 

Don't like the way they are releasing this but the tracks are decent. They will never reach the heights of their first album however.

 

I’ve not heard the others yet, but bloody hell ‘Connection’ is fantastic! Completely different to what I was expecting from them, yet a very pleasant surprise.

Here’s Luke’s reasoning for releasing the album through 3 EPs:

 

”We’re not trying really hard to be Number One. We just felt like a change, and EPs seemed a fun, modern way of doing that: an EP is not too much and not too little. Ironically, this is maybe the most cohesive record we’ve ever made, we’re just releasing it as EPs instead. It’s called ’10 Tracks To Echo In The Dark’ as I like the idea of it being a cassette playlist. That’s an idea that came about from the front covers of old sci-fi novels I’d been reading in the pandemic. So it’s a cassette playlist, but one you can play on Spotify too. I feel like ’10 Tracks To Echo In The Dark’ sounds more like a movie title than an album title too.”

Just seen Beautiful World features Milky Chance. Hoping for some slightly dancey Kooks :o

connection is quite good!

Oops I haven't updated this in a while! So the second EP came out back in April, containing:

 

Closer

Beautiful World (feat. Milky Chance)

25

 

and the third EP never happened, instead they released 'Cold Heart' standalone a few weeks back. I haven't checked out anything since the first EP, but I'm looking forward to giving the album a spin on the strength of 'Connection' - probably their best single in yeeeeeears.

 

I'm liking 'Cold Heart' a lot, looking forward to the album tomorrow!

Oooh ‘Without a Doubt’ is a NEIKED collab! :o

I like 6/10 of the songs on first listen. Will give it another spin at some point and see if any others jump out before I make up my mind!