KEG

Showcasing whip-smart spikiness remains, and a gorgeous weirdness matched by very few others, it's easy to see why wonk pop 7-piece are one of the most talked about bands around.

Their forthcoming debut album Fun’s Over represents the culmination of KEG's initial forays into life, and as such leaps all over—from the melodic to the demented with all the enthusiasm of a very lively bean salad. Sharp angling guitarwork that would be at home both on a Fugazi or a Wilco record. Cascading synths and drums, pepperings of trombone and lyrics which invite you into a baffled man's brain full of joy and anxiety.

Contrary to the previous releases the album takes its time, allowing Keg to showcase the orchestral leanings of the band, melding textures and battering-ram rhythms, whilst all the time managing to hone their carefully manipulated balance of chaos and order.

Recorded between the studio and home, Keg have refined their DIY approach this time around, producing the record themselves with engineering help from Pozi’s Toby Burroughs and mixed by Connor Simpkins.

Offsetting the braggadocious shredding and bombastic instrumentation the lyrics on the album take a much less cocksure approach—beckoning you into a yearning for suburban living, slightly embarrassing admissions of inadequacy, the feeling of creative failure freeing the imagination, taking pleasure in the mundanity of an unsure mind, bathing for freedom, and just a couple simple love songs.

        

KEG are a seven piece. Albert (vocals), Joel (bass) and Will (synth) grew up together around the seaside Yorkshire town of Bridlington; and like many artists growing up in removed quarters of the country, they shared a yearning to leave. Spreading to different parts of the country after leaving school, they found their bandmates in their respective cities and found one another once again on the southern shores of Brighton.

Frank (guitar), whose background resides mostly in hip-hop, afforded a unique pulse with a guitar sound which is manic, discordant but firm. Jules (guitar) whose song-writing sensibilities come from a love of cadence and craft of beautiful soul ballads, imbued the band with his structured sense of composition. Both Charlie (trombone & shell) and Johnny (drums) come from classically trained jazz backgrounds.

On their "Girders" EP, the band say it "came about quite naturally, unconsciously it all seemed to line up, perhaps with the exception of Kids which is just a nice radio friendly song about hating your offspring."