Share on Bluesky
Share on X
There’s a juxtaposition to The K’s album, one where presenting such anthemic, shit-losing noise is laced with a creeping sense of background disquiet.
The mobile phone. The internet. Social media. AI. You can’t help but feel that we’re at the stage now of wondering whether the scientists were too hasty in considering not whether they could, but whether they should.
This creeping dread manifests itself in many aspects of popular culture, to the extent that artists talking about the degradation of their mental health has become common.
Indie rock in the twenties can be a challenging landscape to navigate. Unfashionable, for a handful of names its become self-sustaining, a model that allows bands like The Courteeners to sell out arenas but still consider themselves under the radar.
There’s tremendous fan loyalty, but the days of supplying weekly cover stars have gone.
The K’s represent a great example of the phenomenon. From provincial Warrington, their 2023 debut I Wonder If The World Knows? met with wild applause, earned them a Top 3 slot on the UK album chart, and platinum level festival slots along with supporting the likes of Blossoms and Liam Gallagher.
All should be well, right? Well, on the surface yes, but frontman and singer Jamie Boyle has used the platform the release of its follow-up gives to speak candidly of his own struggles in an environment where under the surface pressures are often acute.
This has meant talking both about his own feelings and the power they hope via Pretty On The Internet that their music has to make a positive difference to the wellbeing of their fans.
“It’s still a sensitive thing to talk about, but a lot of the songs are about my battles with mental health. I’m living my dream every single day but there are plenty of times where I’ll feel like absolute shit. Maybe if people see that, it’ll make whatever they’re going through seem less scary.”
There’s an obvious (but not, it has to be said, unique) juxtaposition here, one where presenting such anthemic, shit-losing noise is laced with a creeping sense of background disquiet.
In a sense, this keep calm and carry on shit is only doing what many are doing whilst feeling the way they’re feeling.
Pretty On The Internet opener Before I Hit the Floor has these contrasts in spades, hurtling fast forward as if a careless look right or left would mean disaster.
Reflection isn’t a weakness though: on the sumptuous ballad Helen Oh I, for instance, Boyle picks over his regret at failing to separate the delusion of rock star goods from the damage he left behind.
It’s a striving for authenticity that The K’s see as the root of their appeal, a realness that is easy to identify with.
There’s a depth musically to their work that complements it, the likes of 33 Heads and closer Perfect Haunting going beyond the standard lager spilling and pyro workouts that judgy outsiders feel are all there is to this strand of pop culture.
It’s probably wrong for them to care. The more throwaway Me And Your Sister hits the accelerator, whilst The Bends (Here We Go Again) deals with the emotional residue of hospitalisation manifesting itself in later relationships.
Joins, connective tissue, the inescapable nodes of people, places and things; the album’s apex Breakdown In My Bedroom deals with these and escape, whilst the hook-laden chorus and chiming guitars sugar what seems like a desperate pill.
The lab coat guys never thought if they should but with Pretty On The Internet, The K’s prove that there’s a way out of all this together by sharing the questions, even if nobody has all the answers.