Weekly > Reviews
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Despite the obvious successes they’ve had this year so far, selling out their recent UK tour and producing one of the singles of the year with the anthemic I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You, I can’t help but feel that things are starting to get a lot tougher for Black Kids.
I say that for two reasons really, the first being that the Jacksonville group did seem to breeze in from nowhere, pick up a couple of key support slots and then released the above mentioned single, which does seem ridiculously easy.
The second reason is that it’s debut album time and when you’ve had success that brings with it a heavy weight on your shoulders, not only are you more under scrutiny because of the success and exposure you’ve had, but with that comes one of the biggest burdens of all…expectation.
Many a promising band have sunk under the weight of it before, either due to things being rushed in the process and the need to get that album out quickly, or because they can’t handle going from nothing, to suddenly being a public property, where everything you do and say is watched and reported on.
Black Kids have avoided the latter at least as they seem to have kept themselves to themselves, they haven’t been regulars on the party scene over here, they don’t seem to feature in the red tops much. Despite this though they still have the expectation to deal with and that I fear has partly been their undoing.
They’ve spoilt us with some tremendous live shows and THAT single and unfortunately, Partie Traumatic falls way short of either. Live the records take on an individual feel to them and their Go!Team-esque rabble rousing comes across as endearing rather than twee and a little bit amateurish as it does on here.
Nothing of course comes close to following up their big hit and nothing is remotely as good a track as that song on here. Yes it has the odd moment that stands out, the last single Hurricane Jane is a decent effort with some good lyrics that seem to focus on drugs. “I took something, it feels like karate, it’s kicked me down and left me for dead” is one example and the other being “I put what I want, when I want In my body…”
- Black Kids
- Partie Traumatic (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: Mercury Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 14 Jul 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesAll too often though it seems to fall into the trap of them sounding like a one trick pony. The majority of songs on here sound like they were inspired by the eighties, a vocal style of The Cure and the energy of The Go!Team do alleviate that feeling, but after a while even that gets a little grating and dull.
While I wouldn’t write them off entirely having seen them live, they need to find a way to harness that live sound and turn it into an album that has the energy of their performance, but also a variety in the song-writing and production, something that Bernard Butler and the band will need to address if they make it to album number two.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.