Kill It Kid: You Owe Nothing

Warring British rockers retune the blues

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Music’s cyclical pattern of history repeating continues. Glam rock’s made a fleeting reappearance this year, neo-grunge threatens to rise up from the grave and it could be argued blues rock never really went away.

The White Stripes helped it move into the indie mainstream, Jack White’s taken it into arenas and the Black Keys have inspired a new generation of players. Not unlike the latter, Kill It Kid reach into a blues-rich history for their inspiration, but have finetuned the sound on their second album to a punchy, radio-friendly dynamic that leaves the speakers like a rocket.

Especially good is the thunder of Black It Out and Sick Case Of Loving You, with Christopher Turpin and Stephanie Ward swapping vocals the way a warring couple spit barbs. It’s Turpin whose dynamic vocal – broken and brittle; fierce and full – should ensure that Kill It Kid endure./o:p

Philip Wilding

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.