Killing music! (Keep On Your Mean Side - The Kills)

Member Name: Kepler

Product:	Keep On Your Mean Side - The Kills
Date:	04/12/07 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Catchy riffs; intense and moody vocals

Disadvantages: Songs drag on, too much repetition, lack of a real hook

The Kills are a two-piece blues/rock hybrid consisting of VV (Alison Mosshart) on vocals and Hotel (Jamie Hince) on vocals and guitar. Allegedly the union of two former pen pals The Kills have been doing the rounds for a while now, touring and writing in preparation for their first full-length release. Their energy filled live shows have gained them many fans in both their home country the US and over here in the UK. On the stages it's just the two of them while in the background lingers a jet black, HAL like drum machine, the rock upon which all of The Kills songs are built.

Many of The Kills tracks have a lo-fi feel about them, songs that have seemingly stolen the essence of a song from one of the old delta bluesmen and then revved up the guitar riff to sound like a hook from one of the classic Stooges songs. The Kills songs are always simple in nature, which is unsurprising considering the fact that there are only two of them. For the most part their songs can be boiled down to just a single repetitive riff and some bluesy, nasal vocals from VV. Surprisingly though there are plenty of songs on this album that extend beyond the four minute mark but not always with good effect. This inherent simplicity means that any Kills song is only as good as it's riff and some songs tend to get boring once they push past the three minute mark. On the other side of the coin though, are the shorter songs, punchy attitude laden tracks that throb and vibrate but are over almost sooner than they start.

These are the songs that work for The Kills, a central, catchy riff overlaid with moody vocals and an overall feeling of the whole thing just coming together. This is when The Kills rock. Songs like 'Cat Claw' a raw, bluesy number with a superbly catchy guitar riff that rises and falls in time with VV's beautifully, sultry vocals is an absolute gem. The chorus which consists of VV repeating 'You got it. I want.' encapsulates everything that The Kills are good at; find something with an instant catch and just run with it. The guitars rarely stray from their allotted path and the vocals consist of maybe a handful of lyrics. But somehow this just works; I'm instantly hooked. Following on from 'Cat Claw' is the hypnotic 'Pull a u', a driving song which sees The Kills at their most simplistic. The guitars are practically unchanging, taking a back seat in favour of a superb set of lyrics. The vocals really dominate this song, with more sultry cool from VV and some quieter more introspective yowling from Hotel. At this point I'm beginning to love this album; a mishmash of styles but brought together so exquisitely that I willingly lap it up.

But as this album wears on, The Kills inadequacies start to become more and more apparent. Fillers such as 'Kissy Kissy', a pedestrian blues number with just a few lines of lyrics repeated for a brain numbing five minutes never really makes the grade. This is The Kills at their most pretentious, a song which stinks of a 'we don't care what you think' attitude. This then starts to become the norm for the album and where before there were catchy, punctuated bursts of cool there is now long drawn out overly repetitive nonsense. On the first listen you may be forgiven for thinking that you might have missed the point and somewhere along the line after a repeated listen something will click. Well it doesn't. With further listens it only becomes clearer that The Kills have attempted to confound us with a huge dollop of pretentious rubbish and hoped that in return we'd somehow be afraid to criticise such unimaginative and caustic music. Songs such as 'F*** the People' and 'Black Rooster' with its 'You want to f*** and fight' chorus are all too obvious in their intentions to shock. When the album finally ended what I was left with was an overriding feeling of disappointment. Before my very ears a potentially great album had dissolved into nothing more than a pile of heavily clichéd crap.

Until The Kills get over themselves and realise that good music, not matter what genre has to have some kind of hook they will never produce an album that is overwhelmingly satisfying. Music has to have something that the listener can latch onto and appreciate. Undoubtedly The Kills do possess this special something; they are capable of writing stunningly catchy riffs. The trouble is they tend to dilute this genius over four or five minutes when two or three would do just fine. It is inevitable that those lacking the patience and imagination to listen to authentic blues music will find that this album provides at least a little entertainment. As it stands though I can find very little that makes me want to come back and listen to this album and as a result I would struggle to recommend this to anyone.

Summary: On the whole, a poor debut effort