Album Review Miles Kane - Coup De Grace

There’s a bullishness about Miles Kane - the kind of self-assured bravado that led the singer to doing an ill-advised topless cover of ‘Hot Stuff’ at a recent summer show - that’s always meant that the people who love him, really love him and they people that don’t, really really fucking don’t. On ‘Coup De Grace’ - the singer’s first new solo album since 2013 - the Scouser isn’t exactly about to become a BBC 6 Music wet dream overnight, but there is something slightly more charming about Miles, third time around.

Maybe it’s in the way that he absolutely unashamedly wears his influences on his sleeve; ‘Cry On My Guitar’ is so T-Rex glam rock, it might as well be wearing glitter eyeshadow and a curly wig. Or maybe it’s that, on the likes of ‘Silverscreen’ and ‘The Wrong Side Of Life’ there’s a rawness here that suggests Miles is genuinely feeling lots of feelings, he’s just expressing them in his own slightly blokey way. Fuck it, maybe it’s just that some of the riffs here (the aforementioned ‘Silverscreen’ especially) are actually pretty alright. Named after a match-winning wrestling move, ‘Coup De Grace’ isn’t quite going to do that, but it’ll get Miles through to the next round.