Keep On Your Mean Side

Yep, Motor City’s still burning. The Kills are all clawed at dirty blues riffs, amp hum and a voice – courtesy of Alison Mosshart – that sounds like a pretty girl gone feral. Scuzzier than Polly Jean’s souped-up wang dang doodle but not quite as scuffed as say, Royal Trux, the duo are short on table manners but long of tooth and nail. The titles tell half the story: ‘Fried My Little Brains’, ‘Black Rooster’, ‘Gypsy Death And You’. Recorded in the ultra chic (and ultra cheap) Toe-Rag studios that also served as maternity ward for the White Stripes’ forthcoming Elephant, this is all gris-gris and hoodoo juju and chicken’s feet with claws on. Gone wrong the whole filthy enterprise could’ve come off as contrived but guitarist Jamie Hince makes a virtue of rhythm in its rawest state, chopping out ugly-puss figures wound tight as sinews. Hearing his shiny arpeggios and distorted jabs on ‘Kissy Kissy’ is like watching a really nifty bantamweight go to work, Kid Congo Powers with 8-ounce gloves. Plus, on ‘Black Rooster’, the drummer (sorry, no credits) knows how to cut and thrust, just so, between blues shuffle and henhouse funk, between the holy mysteries of the threes and the physics of polyrhythm. Later again, the duo put the cadavers of a thousand bad bar bands in the ground with the bogeyman boogie of ‘Fuck The People’, while ‘Monkey 23’ lets loose all the spooks cooped up in the Overlook Hotel that was Exile On Main Street. I like it, like it, yes I do.