ANALYSIS & REVIEWS
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LORDY, WHAT a party it's been since Kenickie first scratched their way out of Catsuit City, left their Punka past behind in Sunderland and immersed themselves in the glittering nightlife of old Landarn tarn. Strike a light, me old mucker. This is exactly what this ridiculously confident debut captures -; the intoxicating rush of teenage dreams becoming reality in a matter of months, the sexy ease of trashing their embittered indie peers, the saucy excitement of being Britain's smartest new band. With their spiky punk-pop scrongling deepened and softened by Supergrass producer John Cornfield, Kenickie now sound wide-bodied and ready for take-off. Guitars shimmer like Hard Candy nail varnish throughout. Reference points are adopted and discarded at disorienting speed: early Blondie for the girls-with-guns playground games of 'Spies'; the Shangri-Las for the call-and-response vocals and synchronised handclaps of 'In Your Car' and the ever majestic 'Come Out 2Nite'; even Dinosaur Jr for the warmly chugging hymn to how downright classy Kenickie are that is, erm, 'Classy'. It's all PVC and parties, champagne and lip gloss, tacky glamour and fruity banter. But if it was only this -; the giddy rush of first love, classroom crushes and furtive youth club snogs -; then Kenickie really would be the shallow cheap-thrills merchants their dissenters would have us believe. If they truly were one-trick Shetland ponies in spangly threads, then those Shampoo and Fluffy parallels would make sense. Indie Spice Girls accusations could be flung with impunity, and Kenickie would be whoring themselves around the TFI Friday circuit until the cash cows staggered home. That, of course, is not the case. Because as well as evoking adolescence's dizzying sense of immortality and hormonally charged confusion like no other album this decade, 'At The Club' consolidates an oft-overlooked strand of Kenickie's vision which throws the rest into stark perspective. Because there is vulnerability here behind the invincible posturing, a crushing sense of youth's transience and a prescient awareness of disappointments to come. Bloody hell -; and still not turned 20. So 'People We Want' might ring with Lauren Laverne's teenage impatience to gallop out and seize the long-promised adult prizes of love and stardom, but she also sounds tremulously uncertain that these treasures even await her at all. The gushing guitar gradients of 'Brother John' tell us that, "Everyone looks better when they're sad," while 'How I Was Made' quietly evokes the fragile bodily self-disgust of Richey or Kurt at their most morbid. Even the Lottery winners of 'Millionaire Sweeper' end up lost and lonely, while album-closers 'I Never Complain' and 'Acetone' find Lauren hunched forlornly over her acoustic guitar, her breathy sighs tinged with suicidal intent. Crikey. Party time, anyone? OK, 'At The Club' isn't the best album ever made. For that, Kenickie will need to learn how to distil their huge, witty, tragicomic and obscenely gifted personalities into musical form -; and, so far, no songs have been invented which can take that level of sassy charisma without collapsing into a black hole of dense antimatter. They could also benefit from stretching their pop palette to match their skyscraping ambition, acknowledging the electronic age which shaped them as much as geetars: after all, their primary school days were brightened by the likes of ABC, the Human League and Duran Duran. The only clear sign of this on 'At The Club' is 'Robot Song', the longest and finest number here, an android-pop ballad with a whiff of Blur's 'Boys & Girls' about it which relates the saga of a cyborg who craves human feelings but, when he gets them, is overwhelmed by sadness. Smart, tinged by tragedy and clever beyond its years -; in other words, totally Kenickie. Even so, despite its minor shortcomings, 'At The Club' fizzes with pure spunk, drop-dead cool and blinding potential. This is a better debut than those of the Manics, the Spice Girls or Blondie -; to choose three relevant benchmarks -; and Kenickie still have time on their side. Masses of time, as it happens, for the disillusionment and pain of adulthood to make them into brilliant songwriters instead of just the world-class pop stars they already are. So -; the best album ever made? Not quite, just the best -; and sexiest, saddest, wisest -; ever made by teenagers. 8/10 Stephen Dalton |
