Tag: The Kills

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first three EPs, Gold, Better Off, and Broken Machine, and their full length debut Palace of Industrial Hope, the San Francisco, CA-based indie rock quintet The New Up — comprised of ES Pitcher (vocals, guitar), Noah Reid (guitar, vocals), Hawk West (automation), Nick Massaro (bass) and Art McConnell (drums) –developed a reputation for genre defying sound that possesses elements of garage rock and electro pop paired with lyrics that focus on philosophical concerns. And while the band has drawn comparisons to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills, their sound reminds me of Dirty Ghosts.

As the story goes, when it came time to start working on the material that would comprise the San Francisco-based quintet’s forthcoming, sophomore effort Tiny Mirrors, the members of the band launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to obtain the necessary funds to create and build their own recording studio, which the band felt was necessary to realize their creative vision for the album — with label or studio interference. Then they covered a secluded Mendocino County, CA barn into a state-of-the-art recording facility and enlisted Jack Frost who has worked with Antartica and BlackRock to produce the recording sessions and Sean Beresford, who has worked with Chuck Prophet, The Donnas and Vanessa Carlton to mix the album.

Now, if you had been frequenting this site towards the end of last year, you may recall that I wrote about album single “Black Swan,” a slinky and slickly produced track in which shimmering and atmospheric electronics, slashing and angular guitar chords and a sinuous bass line are paired with ES Pitcher’s sensual vocals — singing lyrics that reveal the narrator’s urgent, carnal need, the need (and desire) to lose one’s self, if even for a little bit, her increasing frustration with people and human relationships and empty, soulless hookups. But at the core of the song is the sort of loneliness and dissatisfaction that being in a large city frequently inspires within people. The album’s latest single “No Fly Zone” continues on a similar vein as its preceding single as shimmering synths and processed beats are paired with Pitcher’s cooing, shimmering guitar chords in a moody and sensual song that sonically and structurally reminds me of Antics-era Interpol.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Gothenburg Sweden’s LaDIDa Returns with Their Scuzziest Yet Most Straightforward and Anthemic Single to Date

Now it’s been a while since we’ve heard from the Gothenburg-based quartet — and the band’s latest single “You Got It” is arguably the most straightforward yet scuzzy song they’ve released to date as the band’s sound and aesthetic manages to mesh garage rock blues-tinged rock and psych rock with a driving rhythm. Sonically speaking, the song seems as though it were drawing from The Kills, The Black Keys and others, thanks in part to power chords, played with layers of fuzz and abrasive distortion, propulsive drumming and Persson’s growled vocals paired with an arena rock-friendly hook.

The recently released music video features footage of the band rocking out in a junkyard with footage jumping from a cinematic black and white to brilliant color — and throughout the video it’s obvious that the band’s Persson is the superstar of the act, as you’ll spend more attention on her; in fact Persson seems absolutely possessed throughout the video.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeously Cinematic Yet Eerie Visuals for Pamela Hute’s “Banshees”

Last month, I wrote about Pamela Hute, a Paris-based singer/songwriter, who began her music career in earnest at a very young age. As a teen she formed The Mashed Potatoes before going solo in 2006 — and as a solo artist, she’s released two albums, 2010’s Tales From Overseas and 2013’s Bandit, with Bandit being mixed by John Agnello, who has worked with the likes of The Kills, Sonic Youth and Cyndi Lauper. Both of those albums revealed that Hute specializes in jangling guitar pop with rousingly anthemic hooks paired with earnest lyrics as you’ll hear on The Breeders and 90s alt rock channeling “Banshees,” the second and latest single off her self-produced effort Today. But at its core, Today manages to reveal what may arguably be Hute’s most personal songwriting, influenced by a trip she took to California.

Now, as you may recall I wrote about the live video, which featured Hute and her backing band performing “Banshees” at La Fourmi in Limoges, France. The recently released official video, which Hute made with her cousins and nephews this past summer is shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white and it features three characters dressed as crows participating in a weird, almost pagan-like ritual in the woods, before following the trio as they walk about the countryside. It’s arguably some of the most artful and yet eerie imagery I’ve seen in some time.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Jangling and Anthemic Guitar Rock of French Singer/Songwriter Pamela Hute

Pamela Hute is a Paris-based singer/songwriter, who began her music career in earnest at a very young age — as a teen she formed The Mashed Potatoes before going solo in 2006. And as a solo artist, she’s released two albums, 2010’s Tales From Overseas and 2013’s Bandit, with Bandit being mixed by John Agnello, who has worked with the likes of The Kills, Sonic Youth and Cyndi Lauper. Interestingly both albums revealed that Hute specialized in jangling guitar pop and synth pop with rousingly anthemic hooks paired earnest lyrics as you’ll hear on The Breeders and 90s alt rock channeling “Banshees,” the second and latest single off her self-produced effort Today. But at its core, Today manages to reveal what may arguably be Hute’s most personal songwriting, influenced by a trip she took to California.

The recently released music video is shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white, and captures Hute with her backing band performing “Banshees” live at La Fourmi in Limoges, France.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Creepy, Grindhouse-Inspired Visuals for ExSage’s Anthemic “Tripwire”

Interestingly, the duo’s soon-to-be released EP Out of the Blue was produced by Alain Johannes, who has collaborated with Mark Lanegan, Them Crooked Vultures, Brody Dalle, and Queens of the Stone Age, and as you’ll hear on Out of the Blue’s first single “Tripwire,” the band sonically speaking sounds as though they were indebted to The Raveonettes and The Kills. In other words, enormous blazing power chords are paired with thunderous and propulsive drumming and harmonized vocals led by Clover’s pop star-like vocals, and a rousingly anthemic hook — all of which gives the song a larger than life swagger just underneath the song’s bluesy psychedelia.

The recently released video for the song is indebted to creepy, Grindhouse movies and includes a deranged doctor performing surgery without anesthesia, and his bandaged victims walking around like mummies before being driven around in the duo’s sweet Dodge Charger.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Slick and Sensual Sounds and Visuals for The New Up’s “Black Swan”

The album’s latest single “Black Swan” is a slinky and slickly produced track in which shimmering and atmospheric electronics, slashing and angular guitar chords and a sinuous bass line are paired with ES Pitcher’s sensual vocals — singing lyrics that reveal the narrator’s urgent, carnal need, the need (and desire) to lose one’s self, if even for a little bit, her increasing frustration with people and human relationships and empty, soulless hookups. And at the core of the song is the growing loneliness that being in a large city can inspire in all of us.

Directed by Hassan Said, the recently released, sensual video for the song was shot in one continuous take and is inspired by a true (and very fucked up) story — and it features a couple of incredibly cinematic sequences including the video’s incredibly drunk protagonist stumbling around a bar and club while on the verge of vomiting and being followed by an (presumably) obsessed and deranged woman, who fakes being attacked to bring the object of her obsession closer to her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ride Amusement Park Rides with The Kills in Their Video for “Impossible Tracks”

Ash and Ice’s third and latest single “Impossible Tracks” consists of layers of scuzzy, bluesy guitar chords paired with stuttering drum programming and boom bap beats and an anthemic hook with Alison Mosshart’s cigarettes and whiskey soaked, come hither vocals in a swaggering, arena rock-friendly song that’s full of recrimination and accusation and urgent, plaintive desire.

The recently released video follows Mosshart and her collaborator and bandmate Jamie Hince as they ride roller coasters and other rides in an empty amusement park, perform the song in a house of mirrors and the video is completed by kaleidoscopic filters that give the video a trippy and psychedelic vibe, while emphasizing the feelings of being carried away and led by forces much larger than yourself and in a ways that you can’t quite comprehend.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: The Kills Performing “Impossible Tracks” on “The Late Late Show with James Corden”

Ash and Ice, the duo’s latest full-length effort and first full-length effort in over 5 years was released earlier this year, and if you’ve been frequenting this site you might recall that I wrote about album singles “Heart Of A Dog” and “Siberian Nights,” two singles that reflected a thorough refinement of their sound as the duo paired enormous boom-bap drum programming, skittering beats, buzzing electronics, scorching guitar chords and anthemic hooks with Mossheart’s bluesy, cigarettes and whiskey soaked vocals to crate a swaggering and arena rock-friendly song that possesses a raw, insistent and urgent carnality.

Recently, the band performed a swaggering, boozy live version of album single “Impossible Tracks” on The Late Late Show with James Corden — and the live version maintains a fervent urgency of the album’s material.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Israeli Superstar Ninet Tayeb is Set to Take Over the World with Ass-Kicking Visuals for “Superstar”

With a relocation to Los Angeles and the forthcoming Stateside release of her fifth full-length release this fall, Tayeb hopes to become an international superstar — and with the aptly titled first single “Superstar” Tayeb may well be the next big thing. Although some have said that the Israeli-born singer/songwriter and actress seems to take cues from Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O., The Kills’ Allison Mossheart, sonically her sound reminds me quite a bit of Garbage — namely the self-titled debut and Version 2.0 — as the song is comprised of buzzing power chords, propulsive and thundering drumming, rousingly anthemic hooks and a towering self-assuredness that simply says “I’m here and I ain’t fucking around.”

The recently released music video directed by Yoni Ronn features Tayeb in action movie-like music video that features the singer/songwriter as a vengeance-seeking assassin, following her enemy through the streets of New York.

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Check Out The Kills Playful and Yet Badass Video for “Heart Of A Dog”

    With the release of the first four critically  praised albums Keep On Your Mean Side, No Wow, Midnight Boom and Blood Pressures, the indie rock The Kills, comprised of Alison Mossheart, a former member […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Watch Alison Mossheart Brave a Massive Storm in the Video for “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)”

http://cache.vevo.com/assets/html/embed.html?video=US3JJ1500922&autoplay=0 Comprised of Allison Mossheart of The Kills and Discount (vocals), Jack White formerly of The White Stripes and currently of The Raconteurs (drums, guitar and vocals), Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age (guitar, […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dead Weather’s Bluesy, Ass-Kicking New Single “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)”

Comprised of Allison Mossheart of The Kills and Discount (vocals), Jack White formerly of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs (drums, guitar and vocals), Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age (guitar, keyboards, organs), […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Copenhagen All-Girl Trio Baby In Vain’s Ass-Kicking, Name-Taking “Muscles”

Comprised of Lola Hammerich (vocals, guitar)  and Andrea Thuesen (vocals,  guitar) and Bendicte Pierleoni (drums), the young, up-and-coming Copenhagen Denmark-based trio Baby In Vain have rapidly built up and international profile as they’ve opened for the likes of Ty […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Fronted by Dexy Valentine, Magic Wands have received quite a bit of attention as their music has been licensed for use in commercials for Victoria’s Secret, Vogue’s Fashion Week, Gucci, Zara, T-Mobile, Beauty and the Beast, The Vampire Diaries and the Diablo Cody film The Power of Few. […]