Music Review

22 November 2008 04:22 BST

Black Kids aren't gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance

Despite forming barely two years ago, there's a palpable buzz about Floridian five-piece Black Kids that pervades the dingy air at London's Hammersmith Apollo as they take the stage to support Kate Nash for the last time on her UK tour.

With Rolling Stone having earmarked the band as one of the acts to watch in 2008 and their stomping single I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You included in Pitchfork's list of the best songs of the last 12 months, there'd be every reason for Black Kids to carry themselves with more than a hint of arrogance.

But as frontman Reggie Youngblood timidly says the fivesome are "pleased to be supporting Kate Nash", it's clear that there's a reticence and innocence in this group that's sadly missing from most acts landed with similar critical adoration.

That's not to say that their repertoire is one of dazzling originality, with a Modest Mouse sway veering pleasantly behind Reggie's David Byrne yelp and there's the sad recognition that despite Kate Nash's quirky sensibilities, this is a resolutely mainstream crowd, who might not consider Black Kids again until the NME instructs them to in six months or so.

But for the audience members who value more than the opinions of a magazine whose influence belies its intellect, there's something endearingly childlike about Black Kids.

Ali Youngblood shuffles as if a woman possessed on I Want To Be Your Limousine and when a refrain of "oh-wee-oh" surfaces, there's the grin-inducing memory of Morris Day and the Time's Jungle Love. Always a good thing.

Reggie warns us "it's about to get messy" before they launch into I'm Not Gonna Teach… but there's not a hint of abandon about the relentlessly-tight version of their upcoming single (out March 31st) with Kevin Snow battering out a tribal rhythm over Ali and Dawn Watley's call-and-response cries.

And when a disco backbeat announces on the New Order-meets-CSS closer of Look At Me When I Look At You, eliciting an impromptu handclap from the Apollo crowd, it's clear that this is a band whose united front has the might to connect even the most varied of audiences.

Lewis Bazley