The Kills are a strange little dish. They aren't a band I can wholeheartedly embrace and they aren't a band I can outright dismiss. I initially became interested in them when I heard the luminous growl of "Monkey 23" strutting around during a night-driving scene in The Beat That My Heart Skipped. The song was so complimentary to the lush visuals of the film I could have sworn it was recorded explicitly to be placed in that scene. It wasn't until later on that I found out the song was part of the duo's debut album, Keep On Your Mean Side.
Imagine my disappoint when I discovered that none of the other songs on the album sounded even remotely like "Monkey 23". The rest of Mean Side is bogged down by tiresome riffs and smokey vocal moans that don't leave much of an impression. I felt especially insulted because they enticed me with such a nice piece of candy, just to pad it with heat-soaked Crasins. Needless to say, I left The Kills high and dry. I didn't touch, taste, smell or think of them for numerous years to follow.
As the years went on, I began to wonder what happened to the pair. Did they burn out? Did they evolve into something ridiculous? Did those comparisons to the White Stripes drive them to suicide? It turns out that only one of those things happened. They became ridiculous. But not before they made a tight, snarling collection of songs that blew me so far away that I'm still trying to figure out where I landed.
No Wow is like a brief, hard slap in the face. The exact kind of slap that comes from a jilted lover. With the methodical pitter-patter of a subdued drum machine in the background, guitarist Jamie Hince fires off palm-muted clicks, roaring hammer-ons and thick, thick, thick chords. That masterful touch of controlled reverb and tone-doubling found on tracks like "Love is a Deserter" and "Murdermile" provides some authentic satisfaction. Imagine an electric guitar combined with an air horn, shrunk down and thrown into a glass jar filled halfway with sand. That's the sound of The Kills in this particular instance.
Throughout the album, Alison Mosshart groans out curtailed, skinny-white soul. It's a just-right mix of deep attitude and melodic mindfulness - something that many other lady singers (both popstars and indie darlings) tend to forget as they drown themselves in vibrato and general fat-assery. Mosshart's lyrical imagery is cool, dark and dangerous - on "At the Back of the Shell," she sings, "kiss all your fingers, what's that for?/ you'll never get to heaven with your shirt all torn," then wheezing in the chorus, "it ain't such a thrill." It's clear that she wants to be cryptically hip, but it works through the entirety of No Wow. There's a lot of murder, sex and guns that come out of Mosshart's mouth and it works with the sleazy sensuality that the music conjures.
I suppose the best way to look at No Wow, is a brief but powerful moment of genius by a contemporary rock act that sort of fell back into the sea of mediocrity once the album was done. Honestly, it's giving The Kills a lot of credit - many, many, many bands these days can't seem to work their way out of superficial expectations to make a decent rock album, let alone several. The Kills pulled it off, though, and they should be commended for that.
