Miles Kane: One Man Band – In serious need of a few fresh ideas

He has fronted an ill-fated indie band (The Rascals), cofronted an indubitably more successful one (The Last Shadow Puppets, with Alex Turner) and already has four solo albums under his belt. What’s next for Miles Kane? Despite the misleading title, the Merseyside native has enlisted a few family members for his fifth album.

Happily, they have some experience in the business. One Man Band was produced by The Coral’s James Skelly, who happens to be his cousin (that band’s drummer, Ian Skelly, also contributes here), and their influence is palpable on songs such as the title track and Doubles. Kane’s last album, Change the Show, was an homage to Motown and northern soul, and although traces of that influence linger on songs like Baggio, this is primarily an indie album.

Kane claims that bands such as The Strokes and The Libertines were an influence in his bid to get “back to basics”, but the dial swings between forgettable retro-tinged pop rock, on songs like Heartbreaks (the New Sensation), and tracks like The Best Is Yet to Come and Never Taking Me Alive, both of which sound eerily close to Arctic Monkeys cast-offs. He fares better on the softly crooned, woozy shimmer of Ransom, but Heal sounds like a Britpop B-side, and the closing strummed ballad, Scared of Love, is just plain bad. The problem with Kane’s one-man band is that it’s in serious need of a few fresh ideas.