You want some mean? You want some cruel? Some spit in your eye? You’ve come to the right place, boy. This here is the Kills, and they don’t much like you. This here is how they’re letting you know.
This here’s No Wow, record number two from lead singer/guitarist VV and drummer/singer/guitarist Hotel. She’s a Floridian who sounds like PJ Harvey, with a hint of Joan Jett and a bit of Peaches thrown in-the sort of girl who makes Karen O whimper in her sleep. He’s a Brit with a vicious sense of rhythm and the voice of an angel. Together they are the most true-to-the-form blues revival band out there. Ain’t no Black Keys-style wanking solos on this one, ain’t no White Stripes-style experimentation, ain’t no Fiery Furnaces bullshit. This is about minimalism, repetition of simple passages, and lyrics about love, sex and violence. This is what the blues was built on.
The Kills do it here even better than on their first album, the absolutely hard-as-nails Keep on Your Mean Side. They open up with the title track, a song that makes you wonder who in the group is sniffing glue to come up with something so aggressive and unrelenting. On highlight “I Hate the Way You Love,” Hotel drops down to a bare bass beat and lets VV spit out her lines with an affectation that’s sexy, in the sort of way that a girl with a switchblade to your cock is sexy. They don’t change things up too much, and this leads to a few of the songs sounding a bit stale, especially the nondescript “Sweet Cloud.” Still, there’s more melody here than on the last, and if they’ve toned down the violence, it’s only so they can crank up the evil. This is nasty, filthy and mean. Hope you can run, boy.
