The Kills

Overview

The Kills have all the components of an authentic East London indie/garage-punk/battery-acid blues duo pretty much covered, including a story of meeting in a hotel room and early record sleeves shot in photo booths rather than with a professional camera. As of two weeks ago they even have an ex-cocaine addict supermodel closely associated with the band.

They're also rather good at performing. Now on their fourth album, frontwoman Alison Mosshart's raw vivacity is still as visceral as guitarist Jamie Hince's effortless cool is, well, effortless and cool. Her renewed stage energy could be attributed to the fact that Mosshart has just completed a two-album stint at the front of Jack White's The Dead Weather, and Jack has probably stipulated that Mosshart refrain from ferociously prowling across the stage and playing off highly-stylized drum machines and samples for fear that she might steal his thunder (yet she still sometimes does anyway).

The Kills' sound isn't exactly groundbreaking but it's great to thrash around to, drink some whiskey and be generally captivated by the duo's extreme coolness. Just don't throw a pint on stage, because this has been known to get you booed and ejected after being singled out by a surly Hince challenging you to try entertaining a crowd.