So you’re stuck in a random truck stop in some two bit desert town. A 300lb local takes exception to your ‘purdy’ clothes and ‘your one of them city folk’ accent. So what do you do? You fight the bastard! And the soundtrack, well it’d be exactly like this. Purveyors of the ‘less is more ethos’, The Kills return with a brooding indignation of an album. It’s devotion and its necessity and although they’re still rocking the monkey on my back sound, it’s because they threaten to implode in a hail of lust and loss without ever reaching breaking point that sets them apart. Unmatched and unmitigated they provide a wow factor of a different kind.
A total detachment form ‘Keep on your mean side’ may have proven to be too much of to ask, as well as being a wholly unreasonable request, but ‘No wow’ provides a malevolent deviation from the scratched blues rock of their debut. Opening with title track ‘No wow’ the emphasis lies on a soulless drum loop thud that’s maliciously punctured by the buzzing stammer of Hotel’s guitar, whereas ’Love is a deserter’ sees a fleeting return to the whispered tandem vocals and the probing guitar work of ‘Keep on your mean side’ and forthcoming single ‘The Good Ones’ edgily swaggers and distorts to the electronic monotones of another machine fueled track. Still it all remains gloriously down trodden and unclean, epitomised in ‘I hate the way you love’ but even with the added technology it’s still the basic elements. When a sense of hopelessness is sidling next to a sound that throbs with seduction and dominance, it just doesn’t matter anymore. The dynamic of VV (Allison Mosshart) and Hotel (Jamie Hince) simmers with an insatiable force that drives to the forefront regardless. VV stalks and stamps with an air of a hungry PJ Harvey, whilst Hotel’s prowling hushed responses and flashes of guitar only serve to release us for a moment and ultimately coax us back further. Just call her mistress.
Who says you have to re invent yourself to stay relevant? What happens if you were that original in the first place that everyone else is still playing catch up? Retaining the moody beauty of their niche, The Kills have managed to incorporate and enhance everything sultry and devastating from their previous sound whilst acquiring an incessant intensity reminiscent of Joy Division in their finest hour. It might be ambition or it might be they remain a duo so detached that they’re able to inhabit that sick inch in your mind and prey on it for an even darker purpose. So I take a left at Route 66?