Miles Kane – One Man Band Review

A booming source of brilliant music these last few years, Sheffield has its musical pulse racing. From recent turns of artistic flavour on Arctic Monkeys’ The Car to continued live efforts from Richard Hawley and Pulp, the Steel City never sleeps and nor do its great artists. Miles Kane has not had the steadiest run of form but One Man Band hopes to secure some stretch of rewarding material. His half-hour of indie rock is fine enough but lacks the flavour and flourish so many of his local contemporaries showcase. Everyone remembers the album cover, but nobody remembers the freshly-tuned and fine quality of Kane and his work. One Man Band is good enough, a perception of life which does not strike through as fresh but certainly has enough instrumental flourishes to mark a few interesting moments. 

Take Troubled Son for instance, the obvious allusions to childhood in the title are hauled somewhere new by an electric guitar rising through the deluge of similar-sounding lyrics. The best is yet to come, Kane promises in the aptly titled The Best Is Yet To Come. For his sake and the previous four records over the past decade, we can only hope so. He surely has more in the tank than fluttering through vaguely guitar-heavy indie pieces. He has hit the mid-life crisis spot for artists in their mid-30s who enjoyed spells of success in the early 2010s. Dark times indeed on reflection, though Kane has adapted to his new status better than most. Never Taking Me Alive continues on this change of attitude from Kane, who now believes he has pulled all the stops and has nothing left to prove. He does, hence his continued creative streak – though One Man Band, as a title track and album, suffers. 

Often reliant on the guitar work within and never quite attached to it, the likes of Heartbreaks (The New Sensation) and The Wonder sound like pre-match Premier League songs without the warmth or nostalgia. Arctic Monkeys-adjacent, perhaps? Not with this sort of simplicity – though the latter track of Saturday Night Football similarities does strike as an AM riff lacking in lyrical flair. Kane can never quite mount an enjoyable or intense challenge with his words, a shame since this is his chance to expel the demons of careering toward your 40s. He may “always struggle to find my way,” as he puts on clunky number Ransom, but Kane has pulled off a similarly sounded-off record with little room for growth.

The future is terrifying and nobody knows this better than Kane, who spends much of One Man Band fearing what comes next. Doubles strikes as an early number from The Hoosiers while album closer Scared of Love is Kane remembering he needs a fluffy piece to tug at the heartstrings. By the numbers stuff but at least the instrumentals are stuffed full of a genuine urgency and desire to play, something which cannot be said for other contemporaries from the same city. One Man Band is in need of a few extra players, though marks a short and sweet listen. Lingering on the mind for the time it takes to put a bit more toast on, the relative lightness to Kane’s work here is surprising, but One Man Band can never mount the surge in personalised quality it needs. It has scenarios, situations and the like but is muffled under the steady and recognisable riffs which dominate indie music at the moment.