Album Review: The Kopek Millionaires – Love and Loud Guitars

Manchester’s The Kopeck Millionaires – fronted by ex-Goldblade, Anti-Nowhere League and The Business guitarist Johny Skullknuckles – return today (May 1^st) with a new mini-LP. Initially conceived as a studio-only project, the band are a completely DIY outfit – self made, produced and released – working out of ‘Millionaire Mansions’ in Manchester.  ‘Love and Loud Guitars’ is the follow up to 2016’s ‘Hopes and Dreams and Goldfish’, and arrives a few years later than planned. Be assured though, that the wait is worth it, as these ‘are six of the best songs you have ever heard’.

Without underselling it, there’s something immediately familiar and straightforward about the rock and roll rippers that Johny SK and Co deliver. Opening with a chug and a canny melody, ‘Sid Wishes’ breaks into a pulsing, spikey tune complete with a sparky lead break and lush backing vocals. The warped doo-wop of ‘Tell Me Baby’ follows, and it’s into ‘Punk Girl From Another World’ – a lovelorn letter; “I don’t even know you..I’ll just stay here and obsess/forget about you”; the titular punk girl haunting Manchester’s X Clothes and Tib Street of the years passed. ‘It Could Happen To You’, with its speedy bass scales and ‘woah oh’s, is pure pop, clash and rattle. The mini-LP is rounded out with the one-two stroke of the subdued, but no less punchy ‘A Picture In My Memory’ – a key-driven, harmony layered lament and the nostalgic, rueful rowdiness of ‘The Thieving Hands’. 

If infectious melodies were Kopeks, they’d be millionaires.

Like immaculately crafted brash-pop with instantaneous hooks? ‘Love and Loud Guitars’, as well as all other The Kopek Millionaires releases are available through Bandcamp. They also have an official site and a Facebook page.