Album Review

These Little Kings – Floods: Fires EP

• 12th Apr 2012

Young Glasgow rockers These Little Kings have been building a solid reputation for themselves as a live act. Their energetic and anthemic brand of guitar based rock meets powerpop is mainly based around the twin guitars of lead vocalist Ryan McCartney and Ryan Hamilton, while Leigh Docherty on bass and drummer Ryan Monteith supply the power.

The self-published four track Floods: Fires EP is the quartet’s first release and it offers a fine introduction to their music. Opener OK Corral begins slowly before the guitars burst into life. The song starts and stops a couple of times, emphasising the energy of the faster sections nicely. And the lyrics using a Western metaphor to describe a doomed relationship are clever too.

Armour: Amour is another relationship song, the near pun in the title referring to the shields we put up and the need to see the real person underneath. Again the guitars provide the melody and the vocals here are passionate. The long outro with intense vocal harmonies provides a lovely coda to the song.

We Are Sharks is the pick of the tracks, a big anthemic rocker with the type of simple chorus that sticks in your head. This one is fast paced and evocative, its steady rhythm and pounding drums backing lyrics that this time use maritime imagery. At almost five minutes long the song is lengthy although it will sound great on stage.

World War You closes the EP, this time explicitly explaining the conflict metaphor. There is some very nice lead guitar work in amongst the big chords that dominate much of the track and the vocals are a little buried at times, bursting through on occasions to good effect.

Flood: Fires offers up four songs from a band who are dynamic and talented. The songwriting shows a touch of maturity and the blazing guitars familiar from their live show come across well on these tracks. A good debut from a band to watch.