ALBUM REVIEW: Opus Kink – The Sweet Goodbye

So Recordings

Released: 31.07.26

Image by Maisy Banks

All branches on the gutter punk family tree, from The Libertines to Fat White Family, from The Amazing Snakeheads to Warmduscher and even from Black Country, New Road to Black Midi, ultimately lead to its youngest living relative, Opus Kink, arguably the last of the dangerous rock and roll bands. On their debut album the Brighton six-piece seem to have honed the hedonistic into something structured but unstable on their coming of age offering, The Sweet Goodbye.

So, some housekeeping first, more to the above, opener Come Over, Do Me Wrong also manages to cram in some choice Coral, Specials and Nick Cave influences into its sleazy jazz-laced rock, plus a dark elongated outro like a fairground after closing time. Are we all on the same page? Good, then let’s continue.

If there is an archetypal Opus Kink sound three albums in, then it’s on I’m A Pretty Showboy with its driving desert rhythm (with just a hint of the motorik) and urgent, raunchy but anxiety inducing, stop-start structure. A pacey outro showcases the band’s versatility/volatility and (paradoxically) musical maturity. But then they drop the title track, a suitably loose but disreputable and sweetly evocative ode to death, and is Opus Kink’s most progressive track yet as the band continue to push the boundaries of what they can do, albeit with a wealth of instrumentation and influences to choose from, while the omni-present brass incursions add an upbeat jazz or dirty retro-ska feel as is their wont.

So, of course, The Head Tree (feat. The New Eves), is a quasi-religious retelling of witchcraft and hangings in the Seventeenth Century. The apocryphal story of Alice Molland, the last witch in England. The New Eves add a suitably hysterical bent as tension builds until we learn Alice is buried under the car park all along. The sheer number of musical and lyrical ideas on this record is breathtaking. On 448C (The Colour of Love), even the B&Q colour book can become a dark and febrile metaphor for love. Or on Crucify! with its Elvis lip-curl, and where Opus Kink seek to commodify crucifixion while everyone else around them is just trying to get a song on the next Peaky Blinders film…