The Kills

I first heard of them before VV and Hotel adopted “The Kills” moniker on the 5RC comp If the Twenty-First Century Didn’t Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It. “Restaurant Blouse” was just a skeleton of what The Kills would become: raw minimal guitars played loud with overtones of feminine violence.

I didn’t much care for their first album Keep on Your Mean Side. It is too disjointed and rushed, although it contains some great moments such as “Fuck the People” and “Cat Claw”. I guess I was just hoping for something a little more.

That’s why I waited a couple of months to get their new album No Wow. Something compelled me to pick it up despite my reluctance. In it are songs that are cohesive and powerful. VV and Hotel reaffirm all that is great about rock and roll: sex, drugs and violence.

And live, they lived up to all of that. Singing at each other, playing the guitar as if cocking a shotgun, crawling on the ground – it was everything that is right with rock music without the failings of Mick Jagger-ian pretense. I myself was moving along to the drum machine, allowing them to control my movements. By the end of the show I wanted to go into the crowd and punch out a couple of people while making out. It was absolutely gorgeous. If war was conducted by females, it would sound like the Kills.