It's funny how things work out sometimes.
When Kid Canaveral formed in St Andrews in 2005, the four-piece set out as an indie-pop rabble with a love for cassettes, a song about Smash Hits and a support slot with 1980s chanteuse Tiffany on the cards. Since then though, they've stealthily, congenially evolved from DIY party-starters to serious contenders for the Scottish pop throne, with a glorious line in melodic alt-rock that's up there with Frightened Rabbit and Biffy Clyro.
Launching their excellent second album, Now That You Are A Dancer (Fence), to a sell-out crowd in an intimate south side venue, Kid Canaveral played a characteristically tight set that showcased new material like The Wrench and So Sad, So Young (which saw a hair-raising solo turn from frontman David MacGregor), alongside favourites like sublime ballad Her Hair Hangs Down from their 2010 debut LP, Shouting At Wildlife.
There's an edgy punk economy to the band's ecstatic power-pop – it has noise and melody in spades, but not a riff or beat to spare – and this was brilliantly evinced on the axe-duelling, Undertones-baiting Breaking Up Is The New Getting Married, the gorgeous speed-shoegaze of What We Don't Talk About, the girl-group ire of Without A Backing Track, and the hymnal drive-pop of Low Winter Sun, which cast glorious light on the band's knack for yearning indie anthems.
The delirious, epic wall of noise that heralded show-stopping finale A Compromise proved that Kid Canaveral can blindside us with their alt-rock, as did the joyous Who Would Want To Be Loved, all swooning falsetto and indie dubh-wop. "Who would want to be loved? That's just awkward," crooned MacGregor. They better get used to it.
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