THE KILLS

A little context here: I out-and-out hated THE KILLS first two albums. Those would be 2003's KEEP ON YOUR MEAN SIDE and 2005's NO WOW. But the critics ate them up, tripped & stumbled over themselves to compare American girl ALISON "VV" MOSSHART & her Brit boy partner JAMIE "HOTEL" HINCE to THE WHITE STRIPES, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, and PJ HARVEY. Color me dumbfounded. Because all I heard was a loud, tuneless mess -- with none of the energy and excitement that loud, tuneless messes can sometimes be good for.

So now comes record #3. That would be MIDNIGHT BOOM, which will officially see the light of day on March 10. The fact that I like this one (a very little bit) may well signify that the critics are about to turn on this UK-based, garage-blues duo. (After all, receiving even a half-hearted thumbs-up from a blogger willing to dedicate a day to THE CARPENTERS can't possibly be good for an artist's coolness quotient.)

But a half-hearted thumbs-up it is, because it seems that somebody has gone ahead and introduced these folks to the concept of a "hook." Things are still loud and, sometimes, still tuneless. But the bangin' bassline and growly-grrrl vocals on "Cheap and Cheerful" bring to mind THE DETROIT COBRAS and THE GOSSIP. And "Tape Song" has the air of YEAH YEAH YEAHS working their black magic on a certain well-known CURE composition. So... color me content.

THE KILLS on MySPACE.

[MP3] "Cheap and Cheerful"

[MP3] "Tape Song" [REMOVED BY REQUEST]