Tag: The Kills Blood Pressures

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Kills Releases a Sultry and Gritty Blues

Throughout the course of this site’s 10+ year history, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of ink covering the critically applauded and commercially successful duo The Kills. And with the release of albums like 2003’s Keep on Your Mean Side, 2005’s No Wow, 2008’s Midnight Boom, 2011’s Blood Pressures and 2016’s Ash & Ice, the duo — Alison Mosshart (vocals) and Jamie Hince (guitar, production) — have firmly cemented a reputation for crafting a scuzzy and swaggering power chord-based blues and garage rock sound and approach.

Since the release of Ash & Ice, the duo have been busy with their own, individual creative projects: Mosshart published a book of poetry and photography and released some solo material while Hince has been busy with production work. But the duo close out 2020 with the release of Little Bastards, a career-spanning compilation of B-sides and rarities.

The album derives its name from the affectionate nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine they used in their early days and a wry comment on the tracks eventual fate: in many cases, the tracks were crafted on to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, they effectively vanished with the release format that necessitated their creation. The material dates back from the duo’s first batches of 7 inch singles released between 2002 and 2009.

Newly remastered for release on CD, digital and on vinyl LP, it also marks the first ever vinyl pressing for some of the tracks. A significant portion of the compilation features covers — including their feral and sensuous cover of the oft-cover Screamin’ Jay Hawkins‘ “I Put A Spell On You.” Continuing in a similar vein the compilation’s latest single is the serpentine blues number “Weed Killer.” Centered around slashing bursts of distorted guitar and Mosshart’s sultry delivery, the song is everything I love about The Kills: gritty, dirty blues rock delivered with an ass-kicking, name-taking swagger.

The recently released Sally Walker Hudecki-directed video features footage from a Kills show in New York back in 2012. It’s an accurate representation of the duo’s live show and a reminder of what many of us miss so dearly.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Kills Cover Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You”

Throughout the course of this site’s 10+ year history, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of ink covering the critically applauded and commercially successful duo The Kills. And with the release of albums like 2003’s Keep on Your Mean Side, 2005’s No Wow, 2008’s Midnight Boom, 2011’s Blood Pressures and 2016’s Ash & Ice, the duo — Alison Mosshart (vocals) and Jamie Hince (guitar, production) — have cemented a reputation for crafting a scuzzy and swaggering power chord-based blues and garage rock sound and approach.

Some time has passed since I’ve come across new material from the JOVM mainstays. Individually, the members of The Kills have been busy with their own creative projects — Mosshart published a book of poetry and photography and released solo material while Hince has been busy with production work. But interestingly enough, earlier this month the acclaimed duo announced that they would be releasing a career-spanning B-side and rarity compilation titled Little Bastards.

Slated for a December 11, 2020 release through Domino Recording Company, Little Bastards consists of material that date back from the band’s first batches of 7 inch singles released in 2002 up until 2009. The material has been newly remastered for release on CD, digitally and on LP — and it makes the first ever vinyl pressings for some of the tracks. A great deal of the compilation features covers — including the album’s second and latest single, a somewhat straightforward cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ oft-covered Halloween classic “I Put A Spell On You” that bristles with a feral sensuality.

Edited by the band’s Mosshart, the recently released video for “I Put A Spell On You” features live footage from shows in Portland, OR; Pomona, CA; and San Francisco. While capturing the duo’s live energy, the video makes me miss live music so very much. Sigh.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Darkly Surreal Visuals for The Kills “Siberian Nights”

Ash and Ice, the duo’s latest full-length effort and first full-length effort in over 5 years was released last week — and if you’ve been frequenting this site you’d know that I wrote about the album’s first single “Heart Of A Dog” earlier this year. Sonically, Ash and Ice’s first single proved to be a thorough refinement of their sound as the duo paired enormous boom-bap drum programming, skittering beats, buzzing electronics, scorching guitar chords and anthemic hook with Mossheart’s bluesy, cigarettes and whiskey soaked vocals to crate a swaggering and arena rock-friendly song that clearly draws from Delta blues but possesses a raw, insistent and urgent carnality. The album’s latest single “Siberian Nights” continues along a similar vein of the preceding single — boom bap beats, propulsive drumming, bluesy guitar chords, a sinuous bass line and subtly ominous electronics in a sleek, sensual song that shimmies and struts about with a cool self-assuredness.
The recently released music video is a stark and gorgeously surreal video that possesses a nightmarish logic; certainly as a photographer, there are sequences I absolutely envy — a scene of a horse running in slow motion and you can see every sinew and fiber flexing in unified movement; a barking husky in surreal slow motion with teeth snarled angrily and so on. In some way, the video evokes a lingering and inescapable fucked up dystopian nightmare.