Article by Umberto Scaramozzino
It's been eight years since i The KVB enchanted the Astoria of Turin. The late little club in San Salvario hosted the London duo for the first time when they still seemed like a band fresh from their debut, despite having five studio albums under their belt and an appearance at Primavera Sound which put the spotlight on the post-2019 scene. punk on their remarkable multidisciplinary work. Calmly, with quality, KVB have swelled the ranks of their Italian fans and their Turin fans, so the date of 2024 is in one space211 almost sold out which no longer only has many music lovers curious to hear a new band, but many fans happy to find a favorite band live.
In the meantime Nicholas Wood And Kat Day have definitively freed themselves from the limiting label “post-punk” and they have tastefully touched on so many genres that if we decide to place them halfway between shoegaze and the dark wave it's just for convenience and to give a little context. The truth is that KVB are mainly proponents of atmospheres, ideas, sounds and suggestions that use synths and the irresistible rhythms of dream pop to make clubs all over Europe dance.
Nicholas and Kat are also a couple in their private lives and this shows and translates into an excellent relationship alchemy on stage, despite the female presence being much more powerful than his better half. Kat's synthesizers are the backbone of the project, even live, where however Mr. Wood's guitars manage to emerge with greater character. Both manage to blend perfectly with the clear aesthetic idea that the project has been pursuing for several years with the audacity of those who insist on defining themselves as a project multimediaso as not to leave the visual department behind. The visuals that fill the background of the British duo refer to brutalist architecture, already the protagonist of the cover of “Tremors”, last studio album.
“Tremors” is the absolute protagonist of the evening, not only for its predominant presence in the setlist, but also for the tones that define the concert. The post-punk roots are not betrayed, but it is the world dark of The KBV to engulf the space211 in a vortex of sound. This is a dystopian pop of fine workmanship. The songs are imbued with an apocalyptic pessimism of undoubted charm, especially in contrast with the liberating endless dance of Kat Day.
Despite the great prolificacy of The KVB, that feeling remains there, the one experienced at the Astoria last decade, before the venue closed and the world of live music began its perpetual ascent and its merciless descent into hell, as in the paradox of a Penrose scale. The feeling that the two colleagues and lovers are building something that has yet to reach its final form. That they are showing themselves in their dessert embryonic stateleaving us with an undeniable desire to have more.
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Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
