Artists

PJ Harvey/ Eels producer John Parrish has already worked with them, M. Ward was keen but their diaries didn’t match up and there was talk of pencilling something in with Ryan Adams’ former main man Ethan Johns. Shit, all Kill It Kid need is a Diplo remix and an opportunity to get Phil Spector out of the nick and they’d have the control desk holy grail. One second spent listening to the intense, downright primal yet at times quite beautiful howl of frontman Chris Turpin though and it’s easy to see why.

Stating aims as bold as “rewriting pre-war delta blues, compressing the Mississippi memoirs and coining their own brand of boutique, burlesque blues” would land most bands with just one self released EP to their name in trouble but the Bath five piece, who met at the city’s university where four-fifths have just completed music degrees, have all the authenticity and skill to back up such lofty ambitions. And not just because they’ve taken their name from a song by early blues exponent Blind Willie McTell but because, rather like Jack and Meg Ryan kicking off at a barn dance, Kill It Kid like to keep things rousing and raw.

Debut single ‘Send Me An Angel’ - due in May 2009 on One Little Indian - shows this side in spades, and something demonstrated even more on ‘Heaven Never Seemed So Close’ and ‘Burst Its Banks’ from the band's preeceding limited run EP. Elsewhere on the EP and presumably on a debut album recorded in Seattle that's due later in 2009, co-vocalist Stephanie Ward proves herself not to be outdone in the growling department. Her to-and-fros with Turpin sound like a drunken scrap, the kind you’d probably hear in Tom Waits’ and Lily Tomlin’s characters trailer pack home in Short Cuts. And like the great man, Kill It Kid don’t really sound like many other bands out there which is probably the most exciting aspect of all.