The K's - 'I Wonder If The World Knows?' Album Review
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
The Merseyside band’s debut album has certainly bred excitement around the group’s future, with a youthful, exciting sound to them and Jamie Boyle’s remarkably impressive vocals for an indie-rock band.
With the recent release of their new single, ‘Breakdown In My Bedroom’ and their new album Pretty On The Internet set to come out in June 2025, what better time is there to have another look at the album that earned the band the Breakthrough Band of the Year at the Northern Music Awards in 2024.
Artist(s) | The K's |
Release Date | 5th April 2024 |
Genre | Indie Rock |
Rating | 7/10 |
The album kicks off with ‘Icarus’, a reference to the Greek mythological figure who flew too close to the sun and melted his wings of wax and feathers. The song begins with a soothing violin intro that quickly accelerates and is met with the drums of Nathan Peers. Once the song really gets underway, we are introduced to the true sound of The K’s, which is one of energy, head-bopping riffs and high tempo.
Next up is ‘Heart On My Sleeve’, a song about a young man who is suffering from heartbreak from a failed relationship and seeks solace in substances to numb his pain while covering his emotions. Despite the gritty, raw lyrics and issues explored in the song, the tempo remains high, and you’d be well within your rights to mistake it for a happy tune if you somehow missed the lyrics.
The third song on the album is ‘Chancer’, which details the story of a lad who falls in love with an exotic dancer and wants to, as far as he is concerned, rescue her from her lifestyle and be with her in a life of comfort. It is followed by ‘Throw It All Away’, which is Boyle’s admission of his struggle to adapt to a life on the stage and his wish to return to who he once was, referring to himself as a “shell of who I used to be”.
‘Lights Go Down’ brings us back down to Earth and is led by piano and Boyle’s powerful voice singing about his life on the road and how he yearns to return home to an unnamed person. We get to see Ryan Breslin’s talent during his guitar solo in the middle before the chorus kicks back in.
The halfway mark is hit with ‘Hometown’, with an intro reminiscent of ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ by Oasis but, much like ‘Icarus’, speeds up into what is one of the album’s catchiest tracks. Singing about life in a dead-end town, Boyle explores the limited entertainment and how the best way to have a good time is buying narcotics from people he went to school with and listening to music in the sun.
‘Landmines’ follows with a drum intro courtesy of Peers and is yet another song about life as a young person in a small town and the need for alcohol as an escape, this time a three-litre bottle of cider in a tunnel. What a life, eh? Next, though, is ‘Hoping Maybe’, which is routinely met by a crowd full of people singing this song back to the band when they play live. Significantly slower than anything else we’ve heard so far, this track displays the potential for versatility within the band and, once again, Boyle’s excellent vocal ability.
We instantly pick back up with ‘No Place Like Home’, where the band sing about their connection to their hometown and features Dexter Baker’s bassline that you simply can’t ignore, though Peers’ drums once again steal the show. The 10th song of the album is the crowd-pleasing ‘Black and Blue’, discussing the dysfunctional relationship between a girl that Boyle wants to pursue and her abusive boyfriend who is renowned for his violence and threatens to attack him.
The penultimate track is ‘Circles’, which discusses the fear of a life that needs nowhere and is destined to end up with “debt, regret and bills to pay”. We finally end on ‘Valley One’, a textbook album-closer with a slow tempo and similar to ‘Lights Go Down’, which is piano-based and leaves the album on a quiet and emotional note.
‘I Wonder If The World Knows’ is, to summarise, an energetic, crowd-pleasing indie-rock album that explores the life of young people in small, dead-end towns, in this case St Helens, where the band are from.
It’s gritty realism and optimistic sound appeal to those living in similar situations and give voices to those who feel they are going nowhere, but if there’s one thing we can deduce from The K’s debut, it’s that these four are destined to break that mould and go far.
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