18 September 2022
Newsdesk
London, England’s More Kicks have just released their second LP Punch Drunk - their first release on Milwaukee's Dirtnap Records and Rotterdam’s Stardumb Records. Punch Drunk marks a new era for the band: heavier, more expansive, and with more twists and turns. It veers from sparkling harmonies to fearsome riffing in the blink of an eye, with never a second wasted.
As with their first record, it was recorded live on to 2” tape. Listeners will hear influences from classic 60s garage, 70s NYC rock and roll, and jagged 90s guitar pop – all wrapped in a razor sharp bundle. Singer/guitarist James “Sulli” Sullivan says, “Punch Drunk is exactly how I felt when I was writing this album. Knocked around and woozy. It’s an awful cliche to claim that music saved your life but it’s a cliche for a reason and putting this thing together was a total lifeline in a horrible moment. Personal and global upheaval”.
“I just listened to the full album the other day for the first time in months,” Sulli adds, “and it kind of surprised me how muscular it sounds. It sounds angry, desperate, discombobulated, in love with melody, in love with guitars and bass and drums, in love with playing music with friends despite – or perhaps because of – what was happening in the outside world. It sounds like resilience. It sounds punch drunk”.
Accompanying the album is their newest single for Terminal Love, complete with its tour diary video from a recent run of Spanish gigs. Sulli says, "The song is actually a fairly sad expression of a relationship ending. Or rather the creeping realisation that something is just slightly off kilter. So I enjoy the fact that the video stands directly in opposition to that and just shows how – a couple of years down the line – the world can feel a little brighter when you're on tour in Spain, slurping honey from a plastic bottle and trying to make people dance."
