Blitz Kids : Definately One For The Ladies...
The early 80s gave us New Romantic, the early 00s gave us the new punk / post-hardcore hybrid of Emo and now, as we charge towards the second decade of the century, we proudly introduce a colourful bastardisation of both with remo.
That’s romantic-emo. It stands for flair and style and musical power. It stands for looking good and screaming loud – it is that place where Ian MacKaye meets Boy George in an imaginary basement in 1981, eyeliner pencils gets shared and sparks fly. Hell yes.
It is an unholy collision of pop, punk, dance and disco and it is the music that new young five-piece Blitz Kids don’t mind admitting to making - music that draws on the punk/hardcore bands they grew up listening too, but much more besides. So while there are shades of At The Drive-In and Glassjaw in there, Blitz Kids are also unashamedly and unapologetically pop and dance-minded. They don’t mind admitting that the New Romantic records that their parents used to spin have had a major influence.
It’s there in their choice of name, which references the outlandish post-Bowie clubbers that centred around Covent Garden’s Blitz club at the turn of the 1980s – people like Steve Strange, Marilyn, Boy George and the members of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. The people who would shape the pop landscape of the 80s, in fact.
And it’s there in Blitz Kids’ style too. Because for once – and isn’t this refreshing? – here is a band for whom style and looks are as much a part of their music as the riffs. It’s about projection and aspiration and confidence. Their philosophy is – if you look like a half-arsed band, you’ll probably sound like one. It’s about looking like a pop star, even if you’re on the dole.
“People might be stylistically inspired by the early 80s in London but around the pubs in the town that we come from it’s a no-no,” says guitarist Jono. “I get asked pretty much on a nightly basis if I’m gay. So that’s why we do it. What’s so wrong with what to look good – for a band to present a united front?”
Nothing wrong at all if you have chops to back it up – which Blitz Kids do in abundance. Their beginnings lie in plethora of bands spread across the country who played a variety of hardcore, pop-punk, political punk and, in the case of frontman Joe, a heavy obsession with contemporary auto-tuned R&B. All, they admit, were awful, but when those many bands split, five members gravitated together around their home towns of Crewe and Nantwich to form their first band together in 2006.
Operating under the name Rig Up Explosive they built up a strong live following but soon realised that their name was unwieldy and their tunes rapidly becoming stale. So rather than stoically foisting their music on the public they had the good grace to go back to the drawing board to become a great band rather than just a good one. Like ugly ducklings turning into swans the quintet were re-born as Blitz Kids in late 2009.
With the new name came a new set of songs and a new direction – punk music you can shake your ass too. Dance music played on guitars. Disco music for provincial white kids for who slam-dancing and moshing is just that little too obvious.
It’s all their on their debut releases – the frenetic thrashing of the rhythm section on ‘An Ink Blot In A Blood Clot’, the big schizoid spaz-pop choruses of ‘Terminator’ and ‘An Eye for A Diamond’…fans of LostProphets, Foals, Head Automatica, Biffy Clyro, Bloc Party and At The Drive-In should all find something to be excited about here. But then so should fans of anything that worships at the altar of pop music too. Especially if they don’t mind abandoning their too-cool-for-school posturing to instead cut some rug on the dancefloor.
Remember when it was OK to want to be a star? When being a pop peacock was applauded rather than sneered out? Blitz Kids do. Hopefully you do too.