Black Kids

Trying to write about Black Kids without taking into account the hype (hype!) currently surrounding them is… well, it’s a bit of an elephant in the room scenario, so let’s be done with it nice and quick. Yes? Yes.

These ‘Kids arrive atop a wave of hyperbole so large it threatens to break, engulf and consume them before anyone’s really heard their finished product. To summarise: four free to download songs, insurmountable blog buzz, Pitchfork adulation, next big thing, polarised opinion, so on and so forth. Alongside some other hotly tipped acts (did somebody say Adele?) they’ve provoked some interesting debate on the subject of music journalism, the machinations of the industry, hyping hype hypester, y’know, blah. The real question then, possibly overlooked somewhat in the furore: are they, like, any good?

Presumably this is what rests on the mind of the teeming Water Rats audience as the Floridian five-piece emerge and launch into a muted rendition of ‘Hit The Heartbrakes’. Reggie Youngblood and younger sister Ali take centre-stage, the former certainly an eye-catching front-man, the latter all raised eyebrows and coquettish charm. Several reference points have been made as critics fall over themselves in an attempt to describe the band, but for this reviewer the New Radicals’ spectre looms large; not necessarily such a bad thing – say what you will, but wasn’t ‘You Get What You Give’ a bit of a tune?

Don’t answer that for now, as come the second song of the evening signs appear there may be a little more up Black Kids’ sleeve than this sort of gleeful, perhaps ultimately superficial pop muzak. Sis Youngblood’s synth drops and ascends in a manner recalling Twin Peaks’ theme tune, and just as that set the scene for a world that appeared just dandy upon first glance, this offsets Bro Youngblood’s sunny guitar and instils a notably seamier edge to their sound. The lyrics too – often fixated on physicality, on occasion they take a turn for the desperate: pleas of “Love, love, love me already” through the pleasing metaphorical nous of “I took something and it feels like karate / It’s kicked me down and left me for dead”. By the time the band reach ‘Hurricane Jane’ (from whence the above lyrics originate), all earlier nerves have been quelled and they seem entirely comfortable – strident even – in delivering these dark vignettes wrapped up in day-glow instrumentation.

It’s impressive indeed, and met with a healthy smattering of applause. The new songs that follow point towards a stronger, more expansive dynamic – Kevin Snow’s drums and Owen Holmes’ splendidly soft, Motown bass forming an exemplary backdrop to the fuzzy havoc wreaked by the front line. Of course, heartache-obsessed lyrics married to deceptively cheery melodies are nothing new. Go ask Robert Smith. Or The Supremes. Take your pick, if you like: there are literally hundreds of singers, thousands of songs to choose from. So Black Kids aren’t original. But so what? While they’re not – not yet, at least – the revelation touted by some, theirs is an unashamedly exuberant plundering of a rich musical tradition. In their moniker, their song names (one seemingly entitled ‘I Want To Be Your Leprosy’), lies an articulate impudence they just couldn’t get away with were it not backed up with some strong material.

A set just over 30 minutes long is emphatically this, and closes with a moody, rangier new song featuring a spoken word interjection from the keys-bashing girls that defies the law of these things and thankfully works. By no means a perfect show, it nevertheless feels like a small victory: for a band who can count the number of times they’ve played London on one hand (after tonight they’ll have to use a thumb), who already face an avalanche of knee-jerk criticism from sour-faced scenesters willing to take one look and pass them off as New Radicals copyists. Good work, Black Kids, good work indeed.

Did I mention that only two of them are actually black?

Photo: Alan Bee