Excellent debut album by The Kills. (Keep On Your Mean Side - The Kills)

Member Name: DUKE41

Product:	Keep On Your Mean Side - The Kills
Date:	13/04/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's very addictive. You'll probably play it over and over.

Disadvantages: Hands.

The Kills are a boy/girl band formed in London by Jamie Hince ("Hotel") and Alison Moshart ("VV"). They have been compared to the White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Keep On Your Mean Side is their debut LP and is rather excellent. The Kills play a sort of bluesy garage rock in which vocal duties are shared by Messrs Hince and Moshart. They also use a drum machine. Moshart's vocals are very reminiscent of PJ Harvey and Hince's riffs are really, really catchy.

In fact Hince's brilliantly constructed guitar riffs, Moshart's seductive vocals and the drum programming make Keep On Your Mean Side addictive listening.

The opening three tracks are all built around Hince's riffs. However the fourth track Kissy Kissy has a more Velvet Underground/Doors feel to it and sees VV singing the line "It's been a long time coming" over and over.

Hotel takes over vocal duties on Fried My Little Brains and then comes Hands (all 49 seconds of it), the only lowpoint of the album in which we hear VV talking. It's a bit pointless really.

Luckily normal service is resumed on Hitched and Black Rooster in which Hince gets all Velvety again. Wait has a slower tempo than the rest of the album. Alison sings "Tell me how you like yourself. Tell me how you go". Somebody has obviously done something she doesn't approve of.

F*** The People is another gem of a song and allegedly refers to the French convicted criminal Florence Rey.

VV leaves her highpoint on the album until last with Gypsy Death And You. At just under two minutes long it's apparently a song about dying of a drugs overdose. "You knock on the door, she don't recognise your voice no more" sings Alison. It reminds me of Eva Cassidy. It's a fitting ending to a highly satisfying debut record by The Kills which is very hard to put away once you've started playing it. I've had just the same problem with their other two long players, No Wow and Midnight Boom.

Summary: Fantastic first long player by American/British girl/boy band The Kills.