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 the kills session
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Simple pleasures. The Kills don’t mess about. Their raw, minimal, clenched strain of rock’n’roll gets straight to the dirty little point. No frills, no back up. Just a man and a woman, digging deep, with a simple drum machine and a guitar that snarls like a Rottweiler.Having caught the wave of interest in authentic retro rock with 2003’s fierce debut, Keep On Your Mean Side, they’re back with a new LP, titled No Wow after a perceived lack of wow factor in today’s arts compared to their beloved 60s. It was recorded in just three-and-a-half weeks in a creative frenzy, drawing on experiences gained after a year on the road. “We brought everything that we had done in that year, all of our writing, art, photographs, scraps, and we just laid them out in the studio and talked,” explains Alison (aka VV) from beneath a blunt raven-black fringe at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. “We put ourselves into a bubble and it just worked.”  The result is as bare-boned as ever, maybe even more so. “The first record was just two people and a drum machine. We had to decide whether there was more mileage in that or whether we should get other people,” says Jamie (aka Hotel). “I think what you leave out of a song is as important as what you add, and we just felt we had more experimenting to do with it.” Fans may detect a slight shift in emphasis though. The drum machine is more upfront and Jamie’s guitar on Love Is A Deserter and The Good Ones has a Georgio Moroder-like punk disco quality. Jamie explains. “The first album had been mistaken for a celebration of the birth of rock. But we had a drum machine for a reason. We were as inspired as much by Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire and Richard H Kirk, and we wanted to bring that side of us out a bit more I think.”  Like many of their heroes, particularly The Velvet Underground and the beat poets, The Kills are the real deal. They blur the lines between life, love and art. It’s all tightly intertwined and it’s only got one flavour. It’s gritty, raw and passionate, stripped of any padding, and they don’t really care if you don’t like it.
Alastair Lee
The Kills – No Wow, released 21 February 05 on Domino Records.
Günter Grass - The Tin Drum Jamie: “It’s my favourite book and film.” Jack Kerouac - Vision Of Cody Jamie: “I take it with me everywhere. It’s like a reference book for me.” John Cohen (filmmaker) Alison: “I’d recommend any of his films.”  conversations
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 bloc party & the kills live the killssingles #119 the kills
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