Black Kids
Partie Traumatic
Release Date: Jul 22, 2008
Genre(s): Rock, Pop
Record label: Red Int/Red Ink
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Album Review: Partie Traumatic by Black Kids
Fairly Good, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
For almost a year before the release of their debut record, Florida's Black Kids were reliable music blog fodder. First, the breathless discovery, then the breathless confirmation at 2007's CMJ Conference and then breathless speculation on what label the band would end up on (Almost Gold/Columbia) and finally, the question of whether or not the record could possibly live up to the breathless expectations. The answer to that question is a little tricky.
Based on rating 4/5
BLACK KIDS Partie Traumatic (Red Ink/Sony BMG) Rating: NNNN Contrary to what some holier-than-thou hipster website reviewers might think, the Black Kids' debut record is really good. At its simplest, it's a fun, engaging 80s-style pop disc that's wildly energetic but not nauseatingly so. Nearly every track is single-worthy, but Listen To Your Body Tonight's repetitive verses and infectious choruses easily make it one of the best songs here.
Based on rating B+
Reggie Youngblood opens the multiethnic Florida quintet’s debut Partie Traumatic with a knock-knock joke about ”the ghost in your underwear” — sung, for some reason, in a faux-British accent that he maintains for the rest of the record. It’s hard to take anything Black Kids does very seriously after that. Yet for all their more ridiculous tendencies, Youngblood and Co.
Based on rating 5.5/10
The Black Kids’ Partie Traumatic is both a mixtape of and love letter to the synth-shimmer dance rock of '80s new wave, but unlike other Me-Decade music revivalists, it’s without the steel-woven safety net of a cold postpunk bedrock to keep it from careering off the rails into occasional camp of facelessness. Such is the both the strength and the weakness of Partie. It’s a fine indie-rock dance album, but not much more of anything else.The majority of the problem lies with the Floridian’s 2007 EP, Wizard of Ahs, and the (justified) blog hype that it shockwaved through endless lines of code.
Based on rating 1.5/5
Review Summary: These guys are named Black Kids. How edgy.Usually I’m not very hard on albums by up-and-coming acts, but with Partie Traumatic, I feel as though Florida blogtastic quintet Black Kids are begging me to hate them. From the album’s opening lyric on “Hit the Heartbreaks,” the grade school zinger ”Knock knock? Who’s There? Call the ghost in your underwear! Call the ghost in your underwear who? Call the ghost in your underwear boo!” it’s difficult to expect much more than over-the-top, cringe-inducing, swagger-glam pop with absolutely no substance behind it whatsoever.
Opinion: Excellent
Blog band delivers on early hype with danceable first LP Childlike call-and-response vocals, ecstatic, shiny dance-floor sensibilitiesand enough hooks to reel in an entire sea of club-going teenagers buoy this debut full-length release from Jacksonville, Fla. quintet Black Kids. The band hits hard with the follow up to its 2007 demo EP Wizard of Ahhhs, which previously released four of the tracks on this new LP.
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