Mancunian maestros I AM KLOOT conclude what has already been their most successful year to date with a taster of fine new material and whispers of a fourth album which should ensure the momentum is maintained in 2006.
Produced by Elbow mainstays Guy Garvey and Craig Potter, "Maybe I Should" is quintessential Kloot. It's strident stuff, with the same electric edge that dominated parts of the recent "Gods & Monsters" album and opens with one of Johnny Bramwell's classic simple/ complex couplets ("Maybe I should stay here tonight?/ It means nothing, so that's alright") before Pete, Andy and Johnny's usual kinetic brilliance kicks in and they grab the guitar pop format by the scruff of the neck in that raggedly glorious way they've seemingly made their own. I won't spoil it for you, but the little sting in the tail is as potent as ever, too.
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Flipside "Strange Little Girl", meanwhile, is simply Johnny with his acoustic guitar and another of those deceptively minimal little acid treats of his along the lines of "Stray" or "Not A Reasonable Man." It's wistful on the surface, but just a shade threatening and there's even a distinct trace of Morrissey in lines like "wherever you have gone, I have gone". Very good and more substantial than you'd maybe initially think.
2005 has been a good year for I Am Kloot. Their magnificently idiosyncratic pop is full of character and intrigue and at last seems to be reaching something like the audience it deserves. Who says the awkward buggers can't get the girl and kill the baddies, eh?
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