Opus Kink – ‘The Sweet Goodbye’ review: a crepuscular debut that might have missed the boat

Timing, as they say, is everything. And, arriving almost 10 years since they first formed in Brighton, and more than four since their 2022 debut EP ‘’Til The Stream Runs Dry’ tipped them for intriguingly grubby, underground success, jazz-punk band Opus Kink have taken the road to their debut album at a glacial pace.

The reasons for ‘The Sweet Goodbye’’s lengthy gestation are standard issue for a relatively small band: a classic mathematical problem of too many day jobs plus not enough time or money. But the musical landscape slows for no band, and the alternative world that Opus Kink find themselves returning to is a markedly different one to that in which they cut their teeth.

Back in the earlier part of the decade, NME tipped them for hometown glory at 2022’s The Great Escape, calling them a “ramshackle collective with a flair for the theatrics” in a scene dripping with them. From the art-punk sensibilities of Deadletter to the mischievous spirit of fellow Brightonians KEG, the lingering influence of Fat White Family still remained strong and rock bands playing brass instruments had yet to reach peak Brixton Windmill-based saturation. Four years down the line, and Opus Kink have ostensibly levelled up by recruiting heavyweight producer Craig Silvey (Sam Fender, Florence + The Machine) behind the desk, but ‘The Sweet Goodbye’ can’t help but sound like being in a sweaty festival tent half a decade ago.

Now, as then, there is still plenty about the sextet to like. The crepuscular, uneasy spirit of The Birthday Party reigns on ‘The Sweet Goodbye’’s title track; a jazz-punk-country death rattle addressed to “sweet Tallulah”. On ‘The Head Tree’, they recruit The New Eves for an incantational ode to Alice Molland, England’s last condemned witch, while highlight ‘I Have To Shine My Sunday Shoes’ moves from dirgey beginnings to disco-tinged rhythms and raucous gang vocals.

Throughout, frontman Angus Rogers’ presence is that of the underbelly preacherman, spinning gothic tales of heads “buckl[ing] like an old tin drum” on the shapeshifting ‘Crucify!’ or declaiming his “mind like a weeping cyst” on ‘I’m A Pretty Showboy’. Musically, the group cut a Warmduscher-esque silhouette of mucky nocturnal melodies infused with a skulking danceability born for the twilight hours.

‘The Sweet Goodbye’ is the debut that Opus Kink should have made, but the problem with coming up amongst a scene is that the scene moves fast and what once sounded fresh can swiftly become old news. Give it a little more time and ‘The Sweet Goodbye’ might come into its own, away from the shadow of what recently went before. Right now, however, ‘The Sweet Goodbye’ sounds a little too much like Opus Kink retreading their own old ground.