The K’s distil the sound of early indie music and fuse it with the fire of punk on their song about working-class life in a Northern town today.

I don’t know why it’s taken me nearly a decade to become aware of this band; probably because I’m so out of touch with what the Young People like these days.

Also because of their terrible name – The K’s. And definitely because of the apostrophe. But forget that because the music is a perfect hybrid of early Oasis and Arctic Monkeys.

And that’s never going to be a bad thing.

This song could have come straight off Definitely Maybe with the ringing guitar and that drum an instant reminder of Cigarettes And Alcohol. while the Northern-accented vocals, and the social commentary storytelling are an instant reminder of I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

The lyric of Hometown sums up perfectly the life of disaffected, disenchanted and disillusioned working-class youth in a rundown seaside town – let’s call it Clacton, though they come from Merseyside – “emptying all his wages / into the pockets of the boys he hated.” 

It’s got the thrilling buzz of punk rock wrapped up in the sound that became generically known (horribly) as “indie” – and it’s infectious, as the millions of fans who have been streaming them since their 2019 debut single Sarajevo already know.

And my pal John Earls tells me that singer-guitarist Jamie Boyle is one of the best front men performing today. Sadly I’ve never seen him in action (though I could hear him in my garden when they played in Finsbury Park a week or two ago) so I’ll have to settle for a video.