Buzz bands don’t come any... well, buzzier, than Florida’s Black Kids, heartfelt chroniclers of hot hedonistic nights and the recriminatory mornings after. Feted when they had just a single EP to their name, the Jacksonville outfit made good on that early hype with last summer’s Partie Traumatic, a collection of Cure-inflected indie shout-outs shot through with glimmers of mid 20s every-dude angst.
Critics and bloggers are crushing big-time on the band, led by the tousle-haired Reggie Youngblood, and there are signs that the rest of us are set to follow suit. Tonight, the Academy is a churning sweatbox of anticipation. When the ‘Kids arrive on stage to the booming strains of ‘80s hip-hop and plunge into the swooning goth-pop of ‘Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo)’, every last person in the house seems to know the lyrics by heart.
Like most debutantes, The Black Kids aren’t quite the finished product. Youngblood (he and sister Ali being the two ‘black’ kids of the line-up), has a lazy-faced charm and is sometimes prone to coasting on his irascibility. But he’s got songwriterly chops, too, and beneath their uptempo gloss, dancefloor heat seekers such as ‘Listen To Your Body Tonight’ (featuring Ali on vocals) and ‘I’ve Misunderestimated My Charm (Again)’ tremble with ambivalence. In these songs you can catch fascinating hints of the great band Black Kids may one day grow into. In the meantime, you want to follow Youngblood’s instructions to the letter when he tells you to let your hair down and simply enjoy the party.