Keep on Your Mean Side
The Kills’ debut is a stark 21st Century blues album, the sort of thing that would have struggled to find an audience before theWhite Stripesbroke into the mainstream. So it’s lucky for them--and us--that they had such respectable coattails to ride on. The duo--Alison Mosshart, a.k.a. VV, and Hotel--play a music that’s blues influenced with a garage rock edge, and that’s where the similarities end. Sure, the Kills use a drum machine instead of a live drummer, but the differences run much deeper than that: The Kills’s blues rock is dirtier and more sex-drenched version of blues rock, a result of the shared vocal duties of Hotel and VV. The sultry "Hitched" says it all ("I’ll get my name stitched on your lips so you won’t get hitched"). These are songs that sweat sexual menace, recalling Boss Hogg or earlyPJ Harvey(on "Superstition" and "Wait," VV’s voice is a dead ringer for young Polly Jean’s). Best of all, these songs are stuffed with hooks. In a sea of pretenders, the Kills are capable of providing some genuine competition for the White Stripes.--Robert Burrow