CD Odyssey Disc 1847: The Kills

For the second album in a row, we have a record from the mid-oughts.

Disc 1847 is…Midnight Boom

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2008

What’s up with the Cover? I hope this is one of those “you sometimes have to make a mess to clean up” situations and the bed is not always strewn with this much junk. Like they are just reorganizing the photo albums or scrapbooking and we’ve caught them halfway done.

If so one of the photos I would toss out is the one that was chosen for this album cover, which is poorly framed and fills me with a desire to run out of the room and wash my hands.

How I Came To Know It: By way of another band - the Dead Weather - which also features Kills’ singer Alison Mosshart, back in 2011. I then dug backward into their catalogue and came upon this little gem.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Kills albums (I once had six). Of the four that remain, it is a dead heat between Midnight Boom” and “Blood Pressures” for second. Since I don’t do dead heats in this section, I’ll give the win to “Blood Pressures” by the narrowest of margins, dropping “Midnight Boom” to third. Competition at the top is fierce.

And because this is my last Kills album, here is the full accounting, including #5 and #6 that are part of the review experience, but no longer part of the collection:

1. Keep On Your Mean Side: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 324)
2. Blood Pressures: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 788)
3. Midnight Boom: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
4. No Wow: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 795)
5. God Games: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 1715)
6. Ash & Ice: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 989)

Ratings: 4 stars

Some music sounds a little rough around the edges, but the Kills’ “Midnight Boom” does rough right the way through, only letting you up for breath when it knows you can appreciate the gesture. This record is grimy and glorious like ripped blue jeans and a faded leather jacket, looking cool but making you feel like you need a shower.

The core of this record is the blues, and the crunch of Jamie Hince’s guitar and Mosshart’s caterwaul vocals will reach down and grab you by the cockles. There isn’t anything complicated going on, and if anything the magic of “Midnight Boom” is the simplicity of the individual components, laid out bare and played with maximize grit.

The band is only a duo, but they dig deep into their bag of tricks to generate maximum thump. It helps that Mosshart has a classic rock voice in the style of Janis Joplin or Robert Plant, generating all kinds of twist and torque with her delivery.

The production also makes great decisions, adding in every manner of percussion option you can imagine. Sometimes just the guitar played for maximum beat, sometimes a bit of actual drum (presumably Hince on an overdub) and sometimes artful hand claps. Despite all these extra bells and whistles nothing feels artificial.

To ask what the songs on “Midnight Boom” are about is to ask the wrong question. Half of them are under three minutes long and nothing is longer than four – no time to generate multiple verses spinning complex themes or layered tales. Instead you get just enough time to establish a very cool groove mixed with some artful phrases that Mosshart manages to infuse with deeper and more profound meaning than they deserve.

After you’re fully immersed in the crunch of songs like “U.R.A. Fever” and “Tape Song” you are ready – softened up for – the album’s quieter moody pieces like “Black Balloon” and “Goodnight Bad Morning.” You wouldn’t have appreciated them at the front end, but now they give the record depth and variety and a little space to breathe.

“Goodnight Bad Morning” is a standout and coming last on the record, feels like a palate cleanser. Gone are the tortured thumps and barking guitars, replaced with Hince playing light and gentle. Mosshart sings soft as an angel, but don’t expect harps and beatific inspiration. More like that angel from Revelations, cradling your head in her lap and providing much needed succor after having poured all that blood in the river earlier.

It’s the calm after the storm but don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world this time. It’s just rock and roll, baby.

Best tracks: U.R.A. Fever, Cheap and Cheerful, Tape Song, Black Balloon, What New York Used to Be, Goodnight Bad Morning

CD Odyssey Disc 1715: The Kills

Today I shook off a months-long torpor and got out for a lunchtime run. As a result of listening time while out on the trail and some extra driving time on the weekend, I got through this next record surprisingly fast.

Disc 1715 is…God Games

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2023

What’s up with the Cover? Bullfight!

Is a bullfight a ‘god game’? I would’ve thought gods were more likely to play chess, or maybe wrestling or drinking contests for those Norse gods. Of all the gods, the Norse gods seem to have the best time up there in Valhalla. Except for the daily mortal combat, with all the stabbing and what-not. I think that part would get old. They might want to work a board game night in there once in a while to give everyone a rest.

But I digress.

How I Came To Know It: I’m a Kills fan from way back, and for the second straight time I bought their record when it came out, hoping I’d like it. For the second straight time I was disappointed.

How It Stacks Up: I have five Kills albums, and that’s because I got rid of the sixth, which was 2016’s “Ash & Ice” (reviewed back at Disc 989). “God Games” was better than “Ash & Ice” but not by a lot. I put it in fifth spot.

Rating: 2 stars

The Kills keep taking longer and longer to release new music, but it doesn’t seem to be helping the quality any. It was five years before they released “Ash & Ice” and for “God Games” it was seven more. Neither record benefits from the delay.

That’s a nasty lede, and mostly because I very much love the Kills first four albums and therefore expect more from them. Sure, this makes me that hipster douchebag who prefers a band’s “early work” but it doesn’t make me wrong.

So what is it about this record that didn’t get me there? Well, it starts with the production, which sounds like it has forgotten the mid-range. In my car’s boomin’ system, this caused the doors to vibrate with bass. Yes, my car has more oomph than it has acoustic design to accommodate it, but even so, too many things were rattling and some of those things were my vertebrae.

OK, not all albums are meant for the car, but clever readers will recall I ALSO listened to this record while out running, which is an earbud/Walkman arrangement. That is an environment that is overall very kind to all production decisions. Here the thump was gone, but everything felt tinny. Again, no mid-range. I admit I’m a bit of a mid-range junkie, but not usually to the point that I’m spewing 200 words over it.

Structurally, the songs are a mix of blues riffs and experimental percussion. Lots of reverb, and thump. Many feel like a few disparate ideas artfully connected to one another. I say artfully, because the Kills are very good at what they do, and it would do them a disservice to say the result is noise. It is very deliberate in what it is doing. I admired it frequently through my listens, but in the end, I still landed short of the emotional investment I needed.

So what is good about the record? Plenty of things. Firstly those clever syncopated connections of different sounds is cool and when held together with a bit of melody like on “103” the result is both beautiful and groovy. “My Girls My Girls” is another winner, with an almost sixties pop vibe, that features hand claps and some church choir vibes near the end.

The other compelling thing about this record (and all Kills records) is Alison Mosshart’s voice. It is best showcased on the stripped-down heartbreaker, “Blank” but good on every tune, even the lesser ones. Tough as nails and riding an emotional torque so tight you think she’s going to snap the axel, she never does. Mosshart sings like a 1968 Camaro – fast, reckless and undeniably beautiful.

Alas, while those good things earn this record a solid couple of stars, and likely a deserving home in someone’s music collection, that music collection won’t be mine. There’re just too many other great Kills records elbowing each other for space on the shelves already. So I will reluctantly part company with “God Games” and, having been twice bitten, vow to listen to the next Kills album before I decide if I’m going to buy it.

Best tracks: 103, My Girls My Girls, Blank

CD Odyssey Disc 989: The Kills

As I sit here writing this review there is a professional cleaner in my house cleaning my kitchen and bathroom, and vacuuming and tidying my living room. If you have never had someone else clean your house, it is pretty wonderful. If you have had someone else clean your house for years, then take a minute right now to reflect about how truly awesome that is, and how lucky you are.

OK – on to the review.

Disc 989 is…Ash & Ice

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2016

What’s up with the Cover? Two of the coolest things that involve ash and ice: a volcano and a martini. Personally, I prefer my martini with a twist of lemon over an olive, but a martini is a martini.

As for my volcanoes, I prefer them dormant when I’m climbing around on them and furiously erupting with lava when I am a safe distance away. Perspective is everything.

How I Came To Know It: I have been a fan of the Kills for years, so this was just me buying their new album on faith when it came out.

How It Stacks Up:  I have all five of the Kills’ studio albums. Of those five I must reluctantly put “Ash & Ice” in last – and not just because of the use of the ampersand in the title (although that never helps).

Ratings: 2 stars

“Ash & Ice” sees the Kills add a bit of eighties reverb and drum machine to their signature garage rock sound. While I liked that the band is growing their sound a little, the result didn’t appeal to me as much as their earlier records.

As with many of their records, the Kills are a band that make garage music where the beat is king. Groovy drum licks define most of the songs, and while the guitar makes the sound flower, it is the rhythm section that is the vase that holds everything together.

It helps to have Alison Mosshart on lead vocals. Her bluesy growl drives the energy of the songs at the top end and she has a sixth sense for knowing when to cut loose and when to just let the groove flow for a while. While she almost always settles down in the middle of the pocket she does it in a way that makes you feel like she’s restless, and ready to break out at any moment. It is this rebellious tension that gives these relatively basic songs the energy they need to thrive.

In places on “Ash & Ice” Mosshart adopts a bit more of a pop sensibility, with some sweetness creeping into her tone. This is evident on both the opening track “Doing it to Death” and the final one, “Whirling Eye”.

Both those songs have heavy eighties New Wave influences, as well as some drumbeats that sounded suspiciously artificial. If they weren’t made on a drum machine, they were made with the sound a drum machine in mind. I am not a fan of the drum machine.

Both also have coquettish “oh oh oh” singing in the background that would be more at home on a Kylie Minogue album. I have nothing against Kylie Minogue – she’s pretty cool, actually – but that kind of production in the middle of a Kills album felt out of place. Worse, the artificiality at the front of some of the songs made my ear start picking it out on other tracks where it is more in the background, reducing my enjoyment of those ones as well.

The Kills have always had a talent for heartbreaking ballads on otherwise rocking albums, and “Ash & Ice” delivers a good one with “That Love.” A stripped down song featuring a lone piano and Mosshart giving the sad news:

“It’s over now

It’s over now

That love you’re in

Is all fucked up.”

It is heartbreaking and unlike a lot of singers, Mosshart knows how to use a swear word with the right mix of vitriol and casualness that is the key to making such words work. Swear like you mean it, but also like you’ve done it before. “That Love” is a powerful and raw song and was almost enough all on its own for me to keep this record. Almost.

The other strong track, “Heart of a Dog” is vintage Kills, with its pounding beat, sparse riffs and reverb. This song has a bit of techno-drum at the beginning, but it quickly develops into a ballsy rock song, layering three or four complementary riffs that cycle around like sharks in chum-filled water.

Sadly, the album is too much chum and not enough shark. A lot of the other tracks made me wishing I could put on an early Kills album that was a bit more raw and real. This isn’t a bad album, but I had to ask myself how often I was going to play it. Even when I am keen to hear the Kills when I go to that section of the collection, will I pull out “Ash & Ice” or will my hand pass over it and land instead on “Keep on Your Mean Side” or “Blood Pressures”. Probably the latter.

Add in the backdrop of a quickly diminishing amount of space to store all this damned music (yes, I cling stubbornly to physical media) and I need to make tough decisions. Today’s tough decision is to part with “Ash & Ice” and send it on to a good home only sixth months after I welcomed it into mine.

Best tracks: Heart of a Dog, That Love, Impossible Tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 795: The Kills

I’m back from a good day of work and dinner out with a friend. Sheila is sleeping off a visit to the dentist and I’m making her soup, which doesn’t sound as dinner out, but maybe just what you need after a trip to the dentist.

Disc 795 is….No Wow

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2005

What’s up with the Cover? Alison Mosshart plays peek-a-boo with a flash card and Jamie Hince…crumples money? That’s my best guess as to what he’s doing. I can’t really tell, and I can’t ask Alison Mosshart to explain it to me since she’s got her eyes covered with a sign and wouldn’t be able to see. Regardless, this cover has no ‘wow’ factor.

How I Came To Know It: Once I discovered the Kills back in 2011 I went on a record buying binge. “No Wow” and “Midnight Boom” were the last two albums I bought.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Kills albums, which I believe is all of them. Of the four, I must reluctantly put “No Wow” at the bottom of the list, in fourth place.

Ratings: 3 stars

“No Wow” is the Kills’ second album, and while it has their signature garage band sound it doesn’t have the same magic as the two previous albums I’ve reviewed (2003’s “Keep on Your Mean Side” and 2011’s “Blood Pressures”).

The album starts with a bang. “No Wow/Telephone Radio Germany” jumps on you early with a groovy beat that is quickly cut by Alison Mosshart’s dirty punk/rock voice and then cut again when the fuzz guitar riff breaks into the mix. “No Wow…” is a classic Kills song, building up isolated beats in thick slabs and layering in guitar chords into a song that inexorably builds until it suddenly ends, leaving you to wonder what the hell it was all about.

Don’t worry your pretty little head about what these songs are about. You could try to decipher the lyrics but I feel like words are secondary for these guys. Words are there to evoke flashes of imagery. Like on “Love is a Deserter” where Mosshart sings “get the guns out/your love is a deserter” over and over again. It is vaguely about betrayal, but the circumstances are never fully described and who cares – it has a great vibe.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn’t hold up to the first two tracks. Then you’re left with songs about a shitty road (“Dead Road 7”) and what I think is a song about scoring drugs (“The Good Ones”).

These songs have a restlessness about them that is ably fueled by Mosshart’s delivery. As a vocalist, Mosshart alternates between sounding angry, frustrated or just plain strung out. Whatever emotion she’s spitting out, there is a dangerous element to her voice that is what rock and roll is all about when it’s done right. The half-baked reverb blues riffs that accompany her work well, although at times they get a bit derivative. “The Good Ones” sounds a bit too much like BTO’s “Takin’ Care of Business” for me to enjoy it, for example.

The production on “No Wow” strives for a garage band roughness and for the most part it works, but there are times, like at the end of “No Wow/Telephone Radio Germany” where the song trails off into strange samples and noises. This seems to be without purpose beyond demonstrating an ‘unfinished’ sound. My advice would have been to instead just finish it, but I guess at some level that’s a betrayal of the punk aesthetic they are going for.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating how much the Kills music is about the beat. It can be delivered vocally, by guitar or through the traditional drum kit, but the sound is very much about taking different rhythms and pulling them together in creative ways. “At the Back of the Shell” is a good example, rat-a-tat-tatting its way through a song that isn’t terribly complicated, but dresses up well. Mosshart’s impeccable timing is key to the success of every track, and without her these songs would quickly fall apart.

“Rodeo Town” feels like a break up song if breaking up was like some kind of drunken Vegas shoot out. The record is full of the hint of unhealthy relationships and recriminations, empty and otherwise. Unlike a lot of the songs it has more than a hint of both melody and story and I appreciated both.

In fact, there are lots of things to recommend “No Wow” and despite being my least favourite Kills album, it is still a good time. You can’t get too mad when the biggest problem about a record is the band made three better ones.

Best tracks:  No Wow/Telephone Radio Germany, Love is a Deserter, Rodeo Town

CD Odyssey Disc 788: The Kills

I was up early this morning to watch my beloved Miami Dolphins get pummeled by the Jets. We are a bad football team right now, and even worse, I’m not sure much can be done to fix it. It is going to be a long and painful season.

Fortunately, there is always music. Lately I’ve been grooving on a lot of early Motorhead, Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” and new albums from Kurt Vile and the Dead Weather.

The Dead Weather have a connection to this next review, since the two bands share the same lead singer.

Disc 788 is….Blood Pressures

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover? All dressed up with somewhere to go. If you look out the window that somewhere appears to involve a beach.

How I Came To Know It: I worked my way backward to the Kills. Our friends Joel and Sherylyn put me on to the Dead Weather (by way of Jack White), and as alluded to in the teaser, Alison Mosshart is the lead singer of both that band and the Kills. “Blood Pressures” was the first Kills album I bought, and happened to be their most recent.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Kills albums which is all of them. Hey, Kills, time for a new album (word has it they are working on one). For now, though, of the four that exist, I’ll put “Blood Pressures” a close second. Only “Keep On Your Mean Side” (reviewed way back at Disc 324) is better. Back then I said “Blood Pressures” was tied for first, but I recant.

Ratings: 4 stars

The Kills were a revelation when I discovered them. Heavy and groovy in equal measure, their fourth album “Blood Pressures” is a master class in how to make awesome hard rock for the twenty first century.

The band is fundamentally just two people – lead singer/guitarist Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, who plays drums and everything else. Apparently there is no bass player, which is surprising given how thick this sound is. You can thank (or curse) the White Stripes for showing how you can make thick, crunchy grooves without a bass. The Kills do it brilliantly.

“Blood Pressures” is first and foremost percussion driven. Sure there are good guitar grooves and Alison Mosshart’s voice is angst-ridden and awesome but these songs are really about the rhythm and the beat. It isn’t just the drum, either. The layered guitar riffs are equally responsible for creating the ever-present thump. The result is a band that on each song finds new and innovative ways to create old fashioned rock and roll with a twist.

The layering is clever and the various sounds they pull together would sound weird on their own, but combined make for a great sound. On “Heart is a Beating Drum” it sounds like they sample the sound of a ping pong table. I found myself liking it.

Mosshart has one of rock and roll’s great voices. She has great timing and instinctively knows how to find the groove. Despite the great timing, her vocals are raw and dirty, with a bluesy growl that makes you feel like you need a shower after listening.

Great tracks abound, but I tend to like the more up tempo ones. The album starts with “Future Starts Slow” which is typical in terms of what the album offers lyrically:

“You can holler, you can wail

You can swing, you can flail

You can thump like a broken sail.”

These songs aren’t narratives, they are emotional moments caught in time, with sparse but well-chosen imagery like the thumping sail above.

Another favourite is “Nail in My Coffin” which perfectly captures that moment where Mosshart gives a man the classic “I’m no good” warning, and maybe accuses him of the same.

“I am no better at this than you are

Unfinished business may be due love.

I can’t change myself into you dear

What you are to me is far too unclear

“Could be a nail in my coffin

And I don’t need another one.”

This is a warning – the character is damaged goods, so pursue that tangled emotional mess at your peril. At the same time, it is clear Mosshart is inviting the very disaster she purports to swear off. The tension of that space between is held up by the song, which has a groove that is seductive on the surface, and dissonant in its depths.

The production on the record is thick but a bit overly fuzzy in places where I wanted it to be crisp. I can’t decide if I liked it or I didn’t like it so I’ll split the difference and say I kinda liked it but it is never so overt that it wrecks the experience.

When I first bought this album back in 2011 it got seriously over-listened, and so I’ve tried to give myself time away lately so I can rehabilitate it. It was great to roll it on the Odyssey and remind myself there is no reason to stay away.

Best tracks:  Future Starts Slow, Heart is a Beating Drum, Nail in My Coffin, DNA, Baby Says

CD Odyssey Disc 324: The Kills

The preceding review on my CD Odyssey showcased yet another Jack White side project (The Raconteurs). This review demonstrates that the people Jack collaborates with are making some pretty fine music without him as well.

Disc 324 is...Keep On Your Mean Side

Artist: The Kills

Year of Release: 2003

What’s Up With The Cover?: Designed to look like either a school record or an intake record for the slammer (I'm not sure which), this cover shows the Kills posing as their alter ego, "Kid Tsunami" (those with good eyesight will see that name on the forms). It is all a bit silly, but the cover does capture the low tech sound of the band, so I'll give it a pass.

How I Came To Know It: I simply followed the yellow brick road, paved by Jack White's collaborations. I have long been a fan of the White Stripes, and when exhorting the virtues of the Raconteurs one night, my friends Joel and Sherylyn asked me if I'd heard of The Dead Weather, which I had not, but quickly purchased thereafter (and reviewed not long ago at Disc 263).

The Dead Weather is a collaboration partly composed of White Stripes architect Jack White and Alison Mosshart, lead vocalist of The Kills. It was a simple step backward to The Kills, which I got to a few months ago. I decided to start from the beginning for a change, so I bought their debut "Keep On Your Mean Side" first. I have since bought all three others in rapid succession.

So to review: White Stripes leads to Raconteurs leads to The Dead Weather leads to The Kills. If you're wondering how you can discover good new music without the terrible experience that is modern radio, this is how it's done. If you sadly find yourself friendless, Youtube also works, although it will take longer.

How It Stacks Up: I have all four of the Kills full length records. Of the four, I would say "Keep On Your Mean Side" is tied for first with their most recent effort, 2011's "Blood Pressures."

Rating: 4 stars.

As I noted when I reviewed the Dead Weather's "Horehound" (see above), Allison Mosshart has one of the great rock and roll voices of our time. I may not have put it that way at the time (I believe I said she was 'lasciviously bluesy' and that she stands tall among musical giants, but same difference).

Mosshart is both sexy and scary in equal proportion and her vocals are like nails on a blackboard, if those nails are attached to the hottest teacher in school. Many a recent artist has tried hard to capture the raw emotion of early blues masters like Robert Johnson or Muddy Watters. Mosshart manages it effortlessly, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside her.

The other half of this album are the crunchy rock riffs of Jaimie Hince. On tracks like "Pull a U" these riffs sit so low down in your gut that you're sure they're going to push you through the bottom of your chair. The song doesn't have any deep message, principally being variations on the three lines:

"Pull a U with your sexy low car
Got your black magic
And your two dollar love."

With Mosshart's delivery, and the low grind of Hince's guitar, they take on all the importance in the world. They remind you of every hot, dangerous girl you've ever known, and the many more you didn't have the guts to even say hello to. Lately, I'm obsessed with owning an early model Dodge Charger (call it a second mid-life crisis) and this song had me thinking about all those muscle cars I've ridden around in as a kid in a small blue collar town, and how great it was.

In fact, my buddy's older brother used to have a beefed up mid-seventies Chevy Malibu. The blower on the engine was so big, the hood never fit properly, and you could see the engine shaking around dangerously in there like a caged bear. He'd replaced the stock radio with a tape deck connected to two tower speakers, that were laid down behind the bench seat in the back, secured with a piece of unfinished plywood and some screws. It was one hell of a ride.

I guess what I'm getting at is that while we went around town in that car around listening to ACDC, it could have just as easily been "Pull A U" if the year was 2003 instead of 1983.

I don't remember where we used to go in that Malibu back then and it didn't matter; it was enough to take a ride and enjoy the journey. "Keep On Your Mean Side" is the musical equivalent of that experience. The songs are blues-inspired rock songs, powerful guitar licks, and a sexy lead singer dropping catchy sentence fragments that make as much sense as they need to, and no more.

Occasionally, "Keep On Your Mean Side" slows the tempo, putting in tracks like "Kissy Kissy", "Wait" and "Monkey 23" where the guitars ease back a little, and a slow echoey reverb takes over. These sections had me thinking of Concrete Blonde's early work, although Mosshart's scratchy voice holds a harder edge than Johnette Napolitano's more breathy vocals. Of these songs, I prefer "Wait", which is stripped down and acoustic and has an emotional vulnerability from Mosshart that is rare on the record.

Two or three times this record feels the need to end songs with ramblings by the "Kid Tsunami" persona, who sounds like some raving semi-literate in the throws of drug withdrawal. It is OK on the first time through for the novelty of it, but after a few listens I had the desire to cut those pieces out of the record as unnecessary filler on a record that doesn't need such tricks to be great.

"The Kills" are my great musical find for 2011, and "Keep On Your Mean Side" is as good as they get. I just wish it hadn't taken me eight years to discover them.

Best tracks: Superstition, Cat Claw, Pull a U, Fried My Little Brains, Black Rooster, Wait, Monkey 23