Kins at the Turf Club – St. Paul, MN (06 March 2014) concert review

Tour Dates

What do two towns, half a world away from each other, have in common?

For up-and-coming alt-indie band Kins, Melbourne, Australia and Brighton, England have very solid ties indeed, and the result of that was on display at a recent show at the Turf Club, in St. Paul, MN.

 

After short sets by locals tiny deaths and The van Gobots, the quartet played a 45min. complex, sometimes somber and dynamic set, in support of their self-titled debut (on East City Records Limited). The band (Thomas Savage– guitar, vocals; Rob Walters– bass, and Alex Knight- drums) unfortunately had keyboardist Queline Cartwright leave earlier this year, but have soldiered on in this, their first U.S. tour.

Initially formed around a home demos collection by frontman Savage, they eventually uprooted to Brighton UK, where Savage gained a record contract and now, the rest of the current band, after the original members couldn’t make the musical commitment, and Kins have just come off an opening stint for friend and Melbourne resident, Courtney Barnett.

Somewhat atmospheric and downtempo, Savage’s higher pitched vocals and stage presence evoke some of the nuances of an introspective Thom Yorke of Radiohead and the entire band seemed all focused on their performance.

Things started sparsely, with ‘Pale Faced’, then guitar reverb echo’d on ‘Cliché Ridden Fear’, the lyrics earmarked by the “themes of confusion, guilt and nihilism” that is stated in their bio. The band wasn’t afraid to stretch out instrumentally in concert to build the songs slowly, but didn’t say much in-between, at this neighborhood, Pabst-drinking comfort bar of the past.

Drummer Knight pounded the kit all night, like he was releasing some aggression, which eventually caught up to him at the end of the last song, splitting his hand open on an exposed rim edge, but he did manage to finish the show. Current single, ‘Mockasin’s’ had a bouncy rhythm, similar to Vampire Weekend, simple on the surface like songs from The xx, but more sophisticated in beat, upon closer attention.

Savage’s vocals sounded sometimes similar to a Paulo Nutini or Mike Rosenberg from Passenger, and always seemed to infer a slight darkness, such as on ‘Absblurd’ and ‘Aimless’, with the latter finding him sitting mid-song, honed in on his extended guitar instrumental.

The set finale, ‘Little Dancer’ had Savage crooning “I am the monster”, building the song piece-by-piece atop the driving bass drum foundation, to end in a whiplash, free-for-all, with the band releasing whatever tension and energy was left in them. Though the music was on-par, the aloofness on stage was somewhat unsettling and probably kept more from warming to the sounds they were constructing.

Still, Kins is an interesting new band that stopped by locally, on their way to SXSW, and is one to keep an eye on (as now three of the current four members are from Brighton UK), as to how they evolve from here.