Childhood

From The Guardian:

There have been a couple of attempts to launch a new "classic" indie rock band over the last few years, most notably when Brother, two years ago this week, came straight outta Slough with the promise that the sun would shine out of their behinds, and more recently with Palma Violets, who last week appeared on the front cover of NME beside the heading, "High times with the best new band in Britain".

We were a bit iffy when we wrote about Palma Violets in this column back in May, but ironically it's their tourmates – the new London four-piece Childhood – who better suit that strapline. They evoke a feeling of heady joy if not drug-induced euphoria ("high times") and they are probably the best new British band in that very specific, narrow sense of a cocky young bunch of lads come to shake things up with a heap of hyperbole and casual arrogance. Lord knows the music press could do with some of that mouth almighty action, some gobshites, to shift copies of their magazines and give poor Liam and Noel – whom we notice have both been given magazine covers of late with nothing as far as we know to promote – a bit of a rest.

That said, Childhood actually look more cute than cool, pretty enough but lacking the simian charisma of Ian Brown or the rough appeal of the Gallaghers, and minus the working-class Last Gang in Town presence of their northern forebears, despite the fact that their debut single sleeve features what appear to be renegades from an Odd Future video shoot – even their press release, rather than fake some bad lad credentials, refers to them as "fresh-faced". They formed not on a council estate, but at Nottingham University in early 2011, when co-frontboys Dobson and Romans-Hopcraft, then 20, first got together. From the two tracks we've heard, they are clearly influenced by the usual 60s stuff (Beatles, psych) and even though they pay lip service to 70s funkadelia (Sly, Clinton), the latter is only slightly borne out by the music – more evident is a shoegaze haze that would, were this the 90s, have seen Childhood signed to Creation quicker than you can answer the question: "Alan McGee: seer or buffoon?"

That debut single really is a classic of its kind, even if by "classic" we're really just confirming that it resurrects rather than revolutionises. Hearing lead track Blue Velvet, though, is a real what-the-world-is-waiting-for moment, with its luminous guitar pattern and playful percussion. It's the singer's performance that raises it beyond the realms of the, well, Palma Violets – the band do well to keep up as he soars over every note, his wanna-be-adored routine infused with a real sense that good times are here again, and not just for himself and the band. Childhood, like all great groups, carry with them the idea that they will be bringing the party with them, and everyone's invited. Of course, when Ian Brown sang I Am the Resurrection he had 1989 and All That to help with the positive vibes, and in 1994 Liam had on his side Labour's Swinging London revisited. Things ain't quite so cheery in 2012, so it's going to be hard for Childhood to singlehandedly make the culture smiley, but it's to their credit that, for the blissfully conventional four minutes and eight seconds of Blue Velvet, you actually believe it's possible. So much for their She Bangs the Drums. We can't wait for their Fool's Gold.

 

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