Kid Samson
Beast With A Billion Eyes

When bands try to add samples and effects to their demos it's usually an unpleasantly-messy affair. Kid Samson, however, kick against this trend presenting three tracks of unrelenting quirky guitar pop backed by synthetic swooshes, robot vocals, drum loops and what sounds like in-game music on a Commodore 64 (see track 2, 'Volvo'). On the human side the vocals are pleasantly brit-poppy, on the opening track going uncomfortably Damon Albarn in the middle.

It's the constant desire to experiment set against their conscious decision to stay pop that makes Kid Samson so special. No matter how many strange noises and melodic twists they throw in every track has an immediacy that hits you to get your head nodding. 'Robotman' is a particularly good example, starting with Avalanches-esque sample soup it drives into a rolling beat with a big chorus. Later, it all goes quiet and we get guitars and square-wave single note melodies slowly burning up a ramalama punk pop diversion before diving back into the rolling. Someone has realised different movements in pop songs are possible without going quite to the camp theatrical extreme of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (though only just).

It's music with feeling, without feeling the necessity to explicitly explore feelings. It's complicated yet fantastically simple. It's rough as 48 hour stubble yet smooth enough for the tenderest of ears. Kid Samson are probably all intellectual deviants in the flesh, fantastically skewed pop music is rarely made by anyone else, which would make it twice as interesting to see how they perform this future-retro-trad-leftfield music live.