Make Me King - "The Whisper is the Hint"

Make Me King are a five-piece pop-punk types from Lancashire, whose take on the ubiquitous genre is particularly sharp. Long since a style given up for dead – oh lovely, another hand-clapped chorus – this fresh take should pique the most cynical of interests. It’s the theory of sour milk – everyone loves milk, tea drinkers or not, it’s the threat of the contents being sour which leads us all to give the bottle its surreptitious sniff, however involuntary. These lads are not the bad stuff, they’re fresh from the fridge refreshing.

And so before I hijack any more Rafa Benitez quotes on milk....


....I’ll start with “If You Can’t Be Good, Don’t Get Caught”, zipping and tip-toeing through an interchange between pointed ska and pop-punk, and throughout a variety much more surprising and mature than you’d first expect. The interplay and production quirks sprinkle through “Every Truth or Dare” (with its hint of blues in the vocal melody) and the stripped “Wake The World”.

There is particularly dangerous territory in these parts, because all groups have to do is time-signature-switch once too often and they’re trapped in Lost Prophets Hell; but follow the melody fairies down the lane with too many skips in the step and there’s the Fightstar comparisons hanging off every branch like torn sheep’s wool. Fair play to Make Me King for knowing how much of each influence to hat-tip whilst strutting along with their own confidence. It’s unfortunate that the title track is the weakest here, though with so many reasons to be cheerful it’s likely whispers will become shouts before long.


Make Me King's "The Whisper is the Hint" is available on Riot Pop Records

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