Liverpool-based four-piece King Twit are a relatively new arrival on the market. Forming in autumn of 2011, the band have been busking and gigging around Britain and Ireland, and indeed Europe at large, as well as finding some spare time to record this self-produced E.P. The four tracks on this release are a collection of loose, raggedy knees-up numbers that gradually stripped away my cynicism at the samey-ness of it all…’Bicycle’ is a lot of fun.
The Party’s Been A Prison All Along is a lively starter, a sophomore-Libertines flavoured tune with some frenetic guitar work building to a frantic climax. Parking Space continues the formula – a raucous tune bookended by a guitar riff, a gypsy-punk carnival caper with some nice horn work. When the singer isn’t emulating Alex Turner or Pete Doherty he has quite a good voice, as evidenced on standout track The Bottle. With its soulful Dexy’s-like horns, this infectious number recalls at times a 70’s TV theme, or indeed a Broadway musical showstopper. It is just these perfectly judged horns throughout ‘Bicycle’ that raise this collection above the average, adding effective colour and punch to proceedings.
Final number Bicycle is yet another get-yer-knees-up affair with a nostalgic surprise – the tom and horn heavy mid-section bounces right out of Bugsy Malone. This E.P. is a rascally enough article to throw in a sly reference to something just like that – or it could be that they genuinely haven’t seen it. We may well never know, but I would admire the cojones on any band that lifted something from a track that contains the line “We’re the very best at being bad.” There isn’t much in the way of variation on ‘Bicycle’ though and an album’s worth may grate, but until we find out this E.P is a brief shot of high-spirited party liquor.