Leeds-bred and London-based, To Kill A King dwell in an interesting musical space.
Live, they’re exuberant and exhilarating, a wide-eyed swell of charmers reaching for the stars and joining the dots between folky intimacy and arena-scaled euphoria. On their second album, though, it’s a different matter; the material doesn’t quite attain the skyscraping momentum of those shows.
The problem seems to be that they’re unsure whether to make the jump to the big-room blasts which have served contemporaries like Bastille and Mumford & Sons so well or stick to their own guns.
Tracks like Compare Scars and Love Is Not Control may have energy and vibrancy, but they lack the killer touch to turn them into anthems.
There’s plenty of potential on show, but they need a little more than just decent hooks and appealing melodies at this stage.
