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Sep 15, 2011Junk of the Heart is everything the Kooks have been and continue to assert that they are, which makes for a rewarding listen.
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Q MagazineSep 21, 2011It feels like a splash of teenage aftershave: a pass at sophistication, not the real deal. [Oct 2011, p.123]
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MojoSep 19, 2011Luke Pritchard and co attack each of their songs with crisp, clean confidence, brisk guitar lines and open vowels. [Oct 2011, p.97]
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Sep 12, 2011Here, Pritchard and company aim for an even more mainstream success than Konk, and they will likely succeed in selling a boatload of albums. But they've lost something in the process.
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Sep 12, 2011There's very little drive in Junk of the Heart, just a messy selection of meandering verses that surely can't be the product of three years' work.
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Sep 9, 2011The middle of the road was always their destiny, it seems, and they arrive with blatantly pleasant but character-free ditties to accompany you while shopping for a smart new Ben Sherman shirt, though those ditties likely will be forgotten the moment you exit the store.
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Sep 9, 2011Signs of change bubble under a few tracks--they've almost gone drum'n'bass on Is It Me--but the bedrock of the LP is, as ever, winsome, highly listenable harmonic pop.
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Sep 14, 2011The band proves once more that you can't get by on just clever quips and happy-go-lucky hooks. It's too bad, because these catchy compositions would be worth replaying if only they had more substance.
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Sep 30, 2011While their play-it-safe approach may mean they're less likely to suffer the rapid sales decline of their contemporaries, they are now in danger of becoming indie pop's answer to Westlife.
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Sep 12, 2011The downer is that nothing here can touch the early pop gems that can still see even the more stringently alternative spill their JD and cokes, and without that it's all too easy to start thinking this record is a lot worse than it actually is.
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Sep 9, 2011Junk of the Heart may not convert any of The Kooks' detractors, but its hooks should be enough to satisfy fans of their light, catchy pop.
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Sep 12, 2011There's just an unavoidable sense here of a band who aren't quite sure what their purpose is anymore.
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Sep 9, 2011Sparer instrumentation and slack tempos mean that singer Luke Pritchard dominates, and his reedy voice fails to enliven trite lyrics about lust and fame.
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UncutSep 9, 2011They've perfected a kind of free-wheeling, self-conscious pop classicism with immediate surface appeal but little emotional depth, a disappointingly familiar amalgam of Coldplay, Cast, Arctic Monkeys and The verve. [Oct 2011, p.91]
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Sep 9, 2011With Junk of the Heart, the Kooks are completely discarding level-headedness in favor of offbeat trial tests that fail to give any of the tracks any added gravitas.
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Sep 9, 2011The result is a series of half-formed, indifferently performed tracks on which even gifted guitarist Hugh Harris struggles to locate the inspired touches that made Konk so impressive.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 33
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Mixed: 7 out of 33
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Negative: 5 out of 33
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Nov 7, 2011