Weekly Release Spotlight: The Kills

Posted on 3/17/2008

The Kills

Midnight Boom

[Domino]

Nico and Lou. Kim and Thurston. Kim and Frank. Up until this year, this progression of legendary male/female counterculture rock duos might have begrudgingly settled for Jack and Meg to round out the list. Fortunately, with their third album and their first hands-down masterpiece (while their freshman and sophomore efforts were under the radar beauties in their own rights), we can let a more well-rounded, less gimmicky duo take their place: Alison and Jamie, aka The Kills. Visceral but bursting with melody and poetic without being esoteric, the half-American/half-British two-piece continue in the rare but honored tradition of sharing the spotlight between genders in a genre whose originators and mainstream followers often glorified selfish egoism and arrogant machismo.

Midnight Boom's standout quality is equally attributable to the album's producer, Spank Rock's Alex Epton, who brings out dimensions of Alison and Jamie's music that had not yet been appropriately put to tape. When their debut album, Keep On Your Mean Side, was released in 2003, they were incorrectly pegged as another entry in the long line of blues-rock revivalists, mostly due to that album's gritty (not to mention enjoyably raw and dark) aesthetic. 2005's No Wow got closer to capturing The Kills we finally know today, with eye-opening singles like "Love is a Deserter," but still relied on a less-is-more ethic that unnecessarily clouded the band's energy. For anyone that has heard Spank Rock's brain-melting hip-hop album YoYoYoYoYo, Epton's ability to bring Alison and Jamie's instrumental inventiveness (from brassy hand claps to bubble gum bass hooks) and vocal prowess to the forefront makes complete and utter sense.

What makes an album a masterpiece, however, is not just top shelf production, songwriting, and a unique sound. No, especially in the new iPod generation (which really isn't all that "new" anymore), a masterpiece album needs to have a brilliant sequencing and arrangement of tracks from beginning to end, making someone actually want to take their digital player off shuffle for once. Opening track "U.R.A. Fever" reels the listener in for two minutes of blissful and bouncy pop (with a sneering edge of course), and more than satisfactorily rolls the ears into a succession of punchy rock-out anthems. The disc chills out a little more than halfway through with the sparse and haunting "Black Balloon," picks up with full-force on "What New York Used to Be," and ends once again going into ballad mode, which surprisingly suits The Kills well and perfectly complements the earlier rock respite. Midnight Boom is the sound of a legendary act in their prime - catch it before albums officially go out of style.

The Kills will be playing May 11 at the Triple Rock with Telepathe. Doors at 9pm. 21+

Written by Chris Polley, Radio K volunteer and host of Now Like Photographs.

Stream: The Kills - U.R.A. Fever