Miles Kane album review – Colour Of The Trap

Miles Kane – Colour Of The Trap

While he may be best mates with Alex Turner, you can’t help but think Miles Kane must be at least slightly irked that he had to rely on his friends star power to sustain his career in music. After a couple of failed attempts with solid but uninspiring indie bands The Little Flames and The Rascals, Kane finally found his way to the top table as the other half of Turner’s The Last Shadow Puppets side project. Now, with his first solo album, Miles Kane has the chance to prove he’s more than just a side-kick and has the talent to build a career on his own merit, and with Colour Of The Trap he just about manages it.

We say ‘just about’ because although Colour Of The Trap shimmers, sparkles and bounces in all the right places, it comes off as just a little hollow and superficial – leaving you crying out for something with a bit more substance.

The album starts off strong enough, with the muscular and sleazy riff of ‘Come Closer’ – which sees Kane trying the sex symbol rock star approach: “What do I have to do / To get you where I want you?” After following that with the ridiculously catchy pop of ‘Rearrange’ and the almost painfully melodic ‘My Fantasy’ (featuring a certain Noel Gallagher on backing vocals) you begin to think you’re listening to something quite special. Then the ponderous ‘Counting Down The Days’ comes along to pull the plug, with its forced ‘soulful’ lyrics: ‘Love seems strange / To meeeeee‘ (thanks for the insight, Miles) and unconvincing attempt at drama. ‘Take The Night From Me’ is another offender, with Kane sounding like the kind of overbearing crooner you hear in Benidorm karaoke bars. Although there isn’t too much filler on Colour Of The Trap, the ones that are present change what could have been a very good solo album into just a very decent one.

Luckily, the good far outweighs the bad – and there are plenty of gems on Colour Of The Trap. ‘Happenstance‘, featuring a seductive Clemence Poesy (Fleur Delacour to all you Potter fans) on backing vocals, is a beguiling and sultry number, while ‘Quicksand’ is another infectious, sun-drenched pop song that shows Kane has the unique ability to put a smile on anyone’s face with just a few ‘ba ba ba da’s’. Best of the lot, though, is the Gruff Rhys co-penned ‘Kingcrawler’, which provides a welcome slice of psych-rock and sounds like The Coral covering Kasabian – which has to be applauded!

Colour Of The Trap is a promising and entertaining first solo effort, if he can get the mix of attention-grabbing chart fodder and deeper, engaging album tracks right then you get the feeling Miles Kane might just become unstoppable.

7/10