Main Pop Girl

"Who the hell is K.I.D?" The question on everyone's lips may seem innocuous enough, but unpacking the answer will take a little more work. K.I.D, aka Kids in Despair, is 2014's most buzzworthy band, and with good reason. Their debut mixtape, eponymously titled K.I.D, was released earlier this month to overwhelmingly positive reviews; their songs, which come packaged in titles such as 'Stoned on the Schoolbus' and 'Drunk Enough To Love Me', walk the blurred line between heart-wrenchingly honest and slyly satirical; and their fans, of which there are many, make up one of the most dedicated and passionate fanbases seen in the indie-pop scene in recent years. And yet despite this, the band themselves remain shrouded in mystery. A quick glance at their social media pages muses only that we can follow them to experience "Kara and Bobby make mix-tapes together": a surprisingly enigmatic statement in the age of over-sharing. The only photograph available of the band, a scratchy, grainy image that looks like it was taken on a drowned Polaroid, features the pair sliding on a park bench with mistrust in their eyes. And the band's official website offers us nothing to solve the dilemna, featuring only a teasingly simplistic drawing of a cat sitting on a flashing television. The question remains: "Who the hell is K.I.D?" The story of K.I.D started way back in 2011, when three kids from Toronto, Canada came together with one goal in mind: to make amazing music. Independently. In a basement. And that's how The Boom Boom became to be. The bands popularity grew quickly, with their Facebook page soon hitting over 2500 likes and their videos becoming viral hits on YouTube. 'Dillon' became an overnight sensation on European radio, where it was named StandardVinyl's Song of the Day; 'My Heart's An Idiot' was performed live at opening gigs for the likes of Natalia Kills, Eve and Fefe Dobson; and 'I Wish I Was Your Cigarette' was praised by international heavyweights such as Perez Hilton. The sound was electric; the style was hyper-pop; and the reaction was beyond belief. But it didn't take long before Kara and Bobby started wanting more. The makeup took too long to apply, and melted off too quickly in the harsh glare of the spotlight. The songs, intended as a parodical twist on the hyper-stylised, generic electro-pop singles popular at the time, left them underwhelmed. The band started to crack. It was then that K.I.D was born. Armed with a killer new punk direction, a lifetime's worth of experience in the industries of love and music, and, of course, a pair of grungy new haircuts, the two set out on their own to rebel in a new way. Wasting no time, K.I.D started recording in early 2014, and, after months of slave-like writing, recording and producing, hours of high-energy live shows, and about a kilo of mascara, the duo was ready to set their long awaited debut mixtape free in the world, at no extra charge to their longstanding fans. But echos of The Boom Boom continue to haunt the pair. 'The Bong Song', an ode to the pairs love of a certain green substance, features too-good-to-be-true lyrics such as, "I've been in the basement all night long/Fucking playing Donkey Kong/It's alright that we're all wrong/So come on, pass my bong!" The sound, while sufficiently angsty and damaged, reveals just a hint of the varnish Bobby used to reserve for The Boom Boom tracks. And is it just us, or is there the hint of a girlish giggle in every line Kara sings? The question remains: "Who the hell is K.I.D?" Are they the most genuinely angry duo on the planet, primed to take on cult status in the punk scene alongside the likes of Nirvana and Green Day? Or a carefully constructed experiment in selling angst to the masses, poised to hit the same level of success as recent artists in the pop scene like Lorde? Maybe it's time to let the music do the talking. Check out K.I.D's debut single, 'I Wish I Was Your Cigarette' here.