Much like an ice cream on a hot day, Coup De Grace is refreshing, cool, and worth the wait.
As I covered last week, Miles Kane has been getting a lot of stick from the media the last few weeks in the run up to his album launch. It's been relentless and unnecessary, and to be honest Miles deserves better than that because Coup De Grace is a musical masterpiece.
There have been a load of fantastic new rock albums over the last year or so, Tell Your Friends by Nick J.D. Hodgson, The Amazon's eponymous debut album and, of course, Tranquillity Base Hotel + Casino. But the thing that sets Coup De Grace apart from these albums is that every track is so different to the next. Too Little Too Late, whilst fantastic, is very different to Shavambacu, which is polar opposite of Silverscreen. You get my drift.
The similarities come within the lyrics. It's clear to see why Miles has described it as his Adele album, especially with tracks like Killing The Joke, each song perfectly highlights stages of both a romantic relationship and friendship, whether it's at the height of love for each other or in the burning embers of the relationship. If there's one thing that Coup De Grace makes clear, it's that Miles and Jamie T make a somewhat fantastic writing team. But it also highlights what an exceptional musician he is too, with riffs that even I, a bit of a music noob, can recognise as being well beyond the point of perfection.
I think I'd have to call Killing The Joke my favourite. It's a slow yet authentically 'Miles' ballad that has an incredibly dreamy, floaty quality to it that's not seen in any of the other tacks. Guitars still feature heavily in the chorus but the drums are the clear focal point in the melody. It reminds me of some of the tracks on Tell Your Friends, an album I love, but also made me cry a bit when I listened to it at half twelve this morning, earphones in and picturing myself slow dancing with some fit fella at the end of a high-budget Hollywood movie. Only other song that's done that for me is What A Feeling by One Direction - take what you will from that.
The Ballads: Killing The Joke, Shavambacu
The Sing-A-Long Anthems: Coup De Grace, Loaded
The Epic Live: Something To Rely On, Cold Light Of The Day
The Secretly Sad: Cry On My Guitar, Wrong Side Of Life
The Headbangers: Silverscreen, Too Little Too Late
All in all, Coup De Grace is way up there in my favourite albums of the year and goes to show that very good things take time, a whole five years. But my god was the wait worth it; it's good to have you back Miles.
Coup De Grace is available now and tickets for Miles' UK tour are also available now.