Review: Something Else by The Kinks

Insert your metaphorical coin into a metaphorical 'Sixties Classics' machine and sooner or later a Kinks song will fall out. The choice cut this time around is the rousing, melancholic Waterloo Sunset which ends an album that otherwise explores in at least some detail a large variety of the mini-musical transformations the band made throughout the decade; songs which have attributed to the band's legacy as one of Britain's finest of all-time.

Something Else by The Kinks is that unique kind of album that only the best bands have; the pre-masterpiece watershed, that appeals and shimmers in it's own anticipatory qualities, and is often more appreciated because of it's reduced status. While not achieving this to same magnitude as say, Rubber Soul or Bringing It All Back Home, Something Else is a treat as it features the rockier Dave Davies numbers and the "rougher around the edges" type of proto-indie pop that Ray Davies would come to fully realise and perfect on The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society.

True to it's title, each song is almost completely something else from the track before leaving an album that never sounds worn out or lingering on the same ideas. The "fa-fa's" of David Watts soon fade into wonderfully downbeat Death Of A Clown then mutate into the rich in sound but slender Two Sisters, to the hypnotic psychedelic meandering of No Return before the contentedly silly call to arms of Harry Rag arrives. Tin Soldier Man is perhaps jolly to the extent of its ideas, and Ray Davies' manner of creating characters that emulate figures in society with fairytale shenanigans was maybe too well associated with The Kinks to match up to the other often progressive material on the album. 

The real charm of the album starts with Love Me Till The Sun Shines, a song led by its titular refrain and serving as a rockier return in sound after several Ray heavy tracks. Lazy Old Sun and Funny Face are both two of the most peculiar and best tracks on the album, performed by Ray and Dave respectively, but connected by their whimsical lyricism and odd changes of tempo and sound. End Of The Season and Waterloo Sunset both serve as conclusions to the record and are both examples of the side of Ray Davies' genius for the morose yet achingly beautiful pop, a unique trait that very few recapture... Damon Albarn is arguably the dying ember of this style that Ray Davies most certainly created.

8.6/10

Tracklist*:

David Watts

Death Of A Clown

Two Sisters

No Return

Harry Rag

Tin Soldier Man

Situation Vacant

Love Me Till The Sun Shines

Lazy Old Sun

Afternoon Tea

Funny Face

End Of The Season

Waterloo Sunset

*Highlights in bold. Duds in italic.