The Kills
Any male/female Rock duo seemingly always gets compared to the White Stripes. Vocalist Alison Mosshart and guitarist Jamie Hince of The Kills are a perfect example. But it doesn't always fit cleanly. Both Jack White and Hince ply Blues influenced riffs but in The Kills vocals are handled primarily by Mosshart - and there's no Meg White on drums. The Kills use a drum machine.
A veteran of the Florida Punk band Discount, Mosshart met the British born Hince pretty much by chance. They were staying in the same hotel and Mosshart heard Hince rehearsing and struck up a relationship.
When their respective groups bit the dust the two began writing songs together but apart - Mosshart in Florida and Hince in the U.K. They mailed work tapes back and forth across the Atlantic until Mosshart finally upped and relocated to London. There they renamed themselves "W" (Mosshart) and "Hotel" (Hince) and began recording their lo-fi, minimalist compositions. "Restaurant Blouse" appeared on the compilation "If The Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary To Invent It." That led to the "Black Rooster" EP which found distribution in both the U.K. and U.S.
The Kills rolled out their full-length debut "Keep On Your Mean Side" in '03. Mosshart's Punk look - long straight black hair, black jacket, tee-shirt and jeans - perfectly accentuated The Kills' rough and tumble stage show that included her chain smoking, occasional vomiting (probably due to the chain smoking - as well as other factors).
Two years later, The Kills unfurled "No Wow." From that set, the track "The Good Ones" just missed the U.K. Top 20. And though the album failed to crack the U.K. Top 50 (and not even that good in the U.S.), the group gained notoriety. Namely, "Wait" (from "Keep On Your Mean Side") was used in the '06 film Children Of Men and both "Wait" and "Cat Claw" (also from "Keep On Your Mean Side") were heard in an '07 episode (titled "Doubt") of the CBS drama Criminal Minds.
The group's third studio album, "Midnight Boom," landed in early '08. If you did a Google search on Hince at the time you would have found him inexorably linked to actress Kate Moss. Sadly, that was the extent some knew about either Hince or The Kills.
The standard tuning for a guitar is E, A, D, G, B and E. As far as Hince is concerned, those last two high strings might as well not exist. His down and dirty guitar is the perfect underpinning for Mosshart's expressive and piercing vocals.
"Midnight Boom" opens with the moody of "U.R.A. Fever." It's a disarming tune in that is doesn't make an immediate impact but proves difficult to shake. Things pick up with the thumping bass line of "Cheap And Cheerful" before rolling through the sharp cool of "Tape Song." "Last Day Of Magic" nods toward T-Rex while "Black Balloon" has hand-claps and change-up intimacy. "Alphabet Pony" with a "pink plastic Jesus on the dashboard" has a hypnotic drive.
But The Kills are a band best unleashed. "What New York Used To Be" is potent guitar Rock. "Hook And Line" displays their Punk roots and "M.E.X.I.C.O. C.U." is a head-on noise blast.
"No Wow" has "The Good Ones," probably the group's best song to date. It simply kicks it out. "Rodeo Town," surprisingly and effectively, uses Country embellishments to get across. The torrid "I Hate The Way You Love Me Parts I & II" and the stripped down (no drums) "Deep Road 7" make an impression but the rest of the album is merely OK.
While "Keep On Your Mean Side" probably wouldn't have garnered much attention without The White Stripes' prior trailblazing, this set is notably different in that it has more of an edge with the regretful yet trance-inducing "Wait" and the sassy grind of "Cat Claw" (both tracks are also on "Black Rooster").