Roses Kings Castles (RKC) may have sneaked somewhat under the radar during the years in which Adam Ficek was performing with Babyshambles. RKC was originally conceived as the opportunity for Babyshambles co-writer Ficek to express his ‘odd pop’ leanings and 2011 sees the release of their third album titled British Plastic.

It is more likely that the majority will be new to RKC, and with Ficek now no longer indulging in the work of Babyshamble, British Plastic is likely to be appreciated as the most focussed Ficek has been on the RKC project.

‘Never judge a book by its cover’ is an oft used adage and yet that is exactly what you should do in picking up RKC’s British Plastic. Ironically in the aftermath of the return of the Stone Roses, who helped reaffirm Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist work, we find in British Plastic an album cover that is all colourful splashes of paint and oils that heralds that the music within might just be art rock infused.

These Are The Days is indie pop spiced with those art rock references, the mixture of drum, bass, guitar, synthesiser, is then blended with lovely loops and curls of sounds, although Ficek’s vocals feel somewhat uncertain in all this wonderful palette of sound. The chorus is infectiously catchy repetition of ‘These are the days stand up myself’ which you would be hard not to be humming along to as you listen. I Can’t Say follows a similar theme with a programmed beat spiced with blobs of popping sounds.

It takes Here Comes The Summer before Ficek really lets goes. The depressed sounding pulsing beeps and cymbal are sympathetically played against Ficek’s echo muffled vocals, before the guitar and drum dive in and inject energy into the track. Bontempi drum breaks are a must, with the desire to throw in your own hands claps tempered as “here comes the summer” is replaced with the mantra driven “you see it, you want it, you get it” which has its order interchanged so often it gloriously disorientates the mind.

Cockroach is the most experimental track on the album with gunshots, grunting animals and braying donkeys all thrown into a melee of repetitive lyric mantra and techno style beat, its not big and clever, but then again it’s not intended to be.

RKC have produced something interesting if slightly less satisfying with their latest album British Plastic. The ingredients are there for something quite artistic and yet it almost feels like Adam Ficek isn’t confident in his own ability as a singer and as such there just isn’t enough here to truly grab the listener.

Reviewed by Jimbo Walsh.

RKC’s British Plastic is out on 7 November 2011 and available to pre-order from Amazon.