Kill It Kid // Feet Fall Heavy // One Little Indian // Out 19.09.11
By opening with some massive Black Keys style riff and the drop-dead gorgeous Stephanie Wards’ luscious voice slathered over the top like maple syrup, Kill It Kid are basically saying this: they are back, and they are gonna KIK (see what I did there?) your ass back against the wall with this audio sledgehammer Feet Fall Heavy.
I would be lying if I said that this wasn’t a biased review, I have been a huge fan of KIK since I found Heaven Never Seemed So Close, a single from their first album, in a bargain basement in 2009. The fact that Stefanie is quite ‘photogenic’ also definitely helps. What can I say? Girls who play instruments just do it for me.
So what about the album? I have to say, it’s bloody good. They are heavier than before, and as if the h-bomb vocal combo that is Chris Turpin and Stefanie Ward isn’t enough to make this record stand out from the competition, a brave use of Alan Lomax samples and vintage gear further creates an incredibly distinctive sound.
Although KIK aren’t just about massive, heavy Blues numbers, as the touching ballad ‘Home’ demonstrates, I would say that most of this album needs to be listed to with some hard whisky and turned up to 11 in order to give it justice.
The issue that I always had with KIKs’ debute, was I would play it to a friend and they would be like ‘yeh, they’re pretty good’, but then they’d see them live and say ‘Oh, THAT’S why you were making such a fuss’. The first album was good, but it never captured what they could pull off live, and I’m glad to say that this record really does capture the energy that they exude on stage. This may have been helped by the fact that it was produced with Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Grace Jones, Florence and the Machine), as well as it being recorded in 10 days to give it that raw, energetic, live sound.
And see this:
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