Kill It Kid @ Hamptons

With baby faced bands often comes a lacking level of maturity or even a slightly predictable onslaught of whiny, child-like tunes, crafted around the lulls of being young and in love and not having the faintest about what to do about it. Boring, right?

Not the case with Kill It Kid. Sure, their angelic faces shine with the hope of innocence and their humble presence suggests they're but mere musical pups on a learning curve, but what they delivered packs potency of another scale - a haunting, eerie and damn-right rockin' show that transcends appearance and wisdom to wholly shock an audience and boy oh boy, you wouldn't expect to see such a sight from these sixth-form looking stars.

When Chris Turpin spoke prior to the gig, the frontman and guitarist was feeling a little rough. Tour had begun to take its toll on the little guy. A groggy voice and a general sense of disorientation had ensued after 11 days on the road and a handful of not-so-well-thought-out nights on the town have led this young man to a fortress of Lemsip and chronic sniffing - but if one thing's to come out of this then it's the fact that he knows how to get the fucking job done. And done well.

The first half of the bands rapturous set swam around the more folk based rattles of their back catalogue as the tentative pickings begun and pretty soon Turpin announces that the next song is a favourite of theirs with 'Private Idaho' quickly commencing, lapping around its deeply rich male-female vocals and porch jammin' strings. 'My lips wont be kept clean', as Turpin confirmed, is a folk song, the type of head bopping, hip-swingin' folk song that requires a whole load of hay bales and a jar of whiskey as we get our line dance on in leafy surburbia.

'Heaven Never Seemed So Close' and 'Dirty Water' however, are two Les Paul aided blues'n'roots epics, both of which pack a powerful forearm of grubby distortion and wailing vocals that contrast the ghostly shadows of the first half of their set. It's heavy and it's full frontal and most importantly, it demonstrates that this band have the ability to chop and change their pace and noise making ability with seriously overwhelming results that, to be honest, are rather unexpectedly brilliant.