Kites - Brother

Back in April when we featured Kites on the blog, we were swiftly taken in by the glossy 80s vibes of their shiny synth-rock. This was a band with style; sleek, mature and snowballing press coverage by the day.

New single Brother has a studied glamour to it - its the guy at the party who's always wearing the sharpest suit, always drinking the best cocktails. In this instance, the cocktail of choice is a bewitching blend of Foals-esque guitars and synths that sound like distilled starlight.

This is beautiful music for beautiful moments, a fitting choice for the band to make their entrance proper - as the track moves to its emotional crescendo it channels Patrick Wolf and Pulp at their eclectic art-school best. Stirring, smart, Brother is the whole spectrum of emotions from tranquil pensiveness to tear-stained broken dreams.

Kites play the following dates in December:

Friday 02 December - The Silver Bullet, London
Saturday 10 December - 93 Feet East, London

Brother is released on the 28th November.

Brother - Time Machine

Hailing from Slough and signed to Geffen Records, Brother are being touted as one of the hottest new things in music at the moment. With coverage in The Sun (featuring some amazing caricatures drawn by the band’s front-man Leonard Newell), they are on a swift rise to fame and their song Time Machine, available as a free download from their website certainly backs up the hype.

There chorus’s are pure Oasis, all ‘Love is a time machine, bringing you back to me...’, epic and anthemic. It’s fair to say Brother definitely have some of that magic Gallagher swagger to them and they use every scrap of it available to them to pack into their music. They’re also their own distinct band though, the verses in particular marking out their own particular identity. It’s still full of classic rock n’ roll vibes but injected with a hip sense of the here and now. With the Brit-pop legends of the past behind us, Brother strive to create something new and exciting. And with Time Machine, they’re most definitely succeeding.