REVIEW: Rat Boy prepares for NME Music Awards Tour with raucous Corn Exchange slot

Rat Boy – the moniker for Essex boy Jordan Cardy - saunters onto the stage at the Cambridge Corn Exchange with messy, unkempt hair, tight jeans and a baggy hoody – but his performance is far from casual.

The youngster’s combination of catchy guitar riffs, clever sampling and snappy vocals has been compared to Jamie T in his pomp – and you can see why, as the 19-year-old delivers his tunes with a certain youthful arrogance which whips the crowd into a frenetic frenzy ahead of the night’s headline act, The 1975.

Rat Boy, accompanied by his three-man band, doesn’t perform like your stereotypical frontman – there’s no prancing around the stage or banter with the front row - rather he chooses to devote all his energy into spitting out snarling yet insightful lyrics on his take of life growing up in modern England – losing his job in Wetherspoons an example.

Cardy’s witty lyrics on disillusioned youth are sadly lost on a live stage – drowned in a medley of blaring guitars and crowd noise bouncing off the walls of the intimate venue – meaning the true resonance of his messages can’t be absorbed.

However, as his set comes to a close and the hotly anticipated viral hits ‘Sign On’ and ‘Fake ID’ ring around the Corn Exchange, the crowd truly comes alive.

The scruffy-haired teen belts out a chorus of “it won’t be long until I sign on” – but there’s no danger of a trip to the job centre any time soon for the chap from Chelmsford, whose musical career promises to go from strength to strength - starting with a slot on the NME Music Awards Tour early next year.