King Pest, the Manchester quartet, invoke the soft-rock music of the 80s. Recent winners of XFM Uploaded and the radio station’s monthly panel vote, they appear to have pleased some important folks in the industry.
This EP is, however, by no means perfect. ‘Reasons’, for instance, is a two-chord traipse through a backdrop of jarring guitar and wilting vocal. The recording even comes complete with a catarrh-filled cough at the beginning. It is the seedy after-gig aging rock star/groupie romp - “she smiles as I slap her bum”. The hideous American lilt in the vocal is truly cringeworthy and nowhere is this more apparent than in ‘I Know’ - a grimly weak, tuneless wringing of the notes.
This band have spent a lot of time and effort recording this material and there is always a redeeming feature to be found. Okay, their press blurb is ridiculously over -the-top - they do not sound like ‘The Pixies playing the hits of The Beatles’, nor do they play ‘glorious, tub-thumping pop songs’. However, if they do go back to the studio and build on the promise of the pomp and drive of the EP’s title-track they’ll be heading in the right direction.
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