The result meanders its way to being good enough, but never quite reaches the heights of their earlier work.
Let’s Go Sunshine is 15 tracks of indie-rock that has all the ingredients of a great Kooks album – plenty of hooks and riffs and soaring choruses – but it lacks that special quality that made albums like Konk and Inside In/Inside Out the classics that they went on to become. Let’s Go Sunshine is like a cake without the icing.
Lead single ‘All The Time’ comes across as overproduced, and while the track itself is very well written, it seems like it’s soul was removed by some overzealous folks behind a mixing board.
The album does have its moments, with tracks like ‘Chicken Bone’ showing glimpses of what should have been possible, and ‘Honey Bee’ has some fun with a very Paul Simon-esque groove.
After four years, perhaps expectations were just too high for the next The Kooks release, but with Let’s Go Sunshine, they haven’t quite delivered. Despite flirting with quality, the album never quite hits the high notes we all hoped it would.
6/10
