Hot! The Kills

The Kills is a Alison Mosshart ("VV") and British guitarist Jamie Hince ("Hotel"). Their first three albums, Keep On Your Mean Side , No Wow , and Midnight Boom have gathered much critical praise. Blood Pressures , their fourth and most recent studio album, was released on April 4, 2011 worldwide and April 5, 2011 in the Canada until May 14, 2011. From there they are touring the Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 5-7th.

Career

Mosshart was previously in Floridian band Discount , and Hince was in the British rock bands Fiji, Scarfo and Blyth Power (the latter describe themselves as a mix of air mailed work tapes across the London .

Wanting to cut themselves off from their pasts, Mosshart and Hince renamed themselves "VV" and "Hotel" respectively and began writing sparse, minimalist songs together with the aid of a If the Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It. Shortly after this they recorded their debut release, the Black Rooster EP , which saw release on British indie label Domino Records and was picked up for distribution by Dim Mak Records in the .

The record could not have been more of a departure from both artists' previous bands. It was lo-fi in both musical and aesthetic terms. The record sleeve featured photos of Mosshart and Hince taken in a photo booth rather than professional photography. Musically, the record was a sparse, lo-fi Garage rock /Blues hybrid. Though the band cites Captain Beefheart , PJ Harvey , LCD Soundsystem , Patti Smith , and as immediate influences, the music press has largely compared them to another well-known boy/girl minimalist garage blues duo, .

Keep on Your Mean Side

Following international touring, they entered Elephant , to record their debut album Keep on Your Mean Side , mostly on Florence Rey ) and dark psychedelia of "Kissy Kissy". The record was well received by the music press, though the White Stripes comparisons would not go away.

Maintaining an anti-careerist , anti-citation needed ] Mosshart chain-smoked while singing, rarely speaking to the audience, whilst Hince violently ripped blues riffs from his instrument. At a New York City show following the ban on public smoking, Mosshart went on stage with three bottles of water, lit up a cigarette and proceeded to smoke constantly from the first song to the last note of the set.

In 2005, "Monkey 23" was used in "De battre mon c ur s'est arr t ", the film by Jacques Audiard . It played over the closing credits.

In 2006, "Wait" was used in Children of Men , the film by Alfonso Cuar n . It was played on Radio Avalon and described as "a blast from the past all the way back to 2003, that beautiful time when people refused to accept the future is just around the corner". In 2007, the songs "Cat Claw" and "Wait" were used in the episode "Doubt".

No Wow

Their second album, No Wow , was released by Domino Records on February 21, 2005. Featuring an artier, less "guitar rock" sound, the record embraced post punk influences and sounded even more stripped down than Keep on Your Mean Side . Originally written to be performed on a Moog , the band was forced to change directions and record it primarily using a guitar as its central instrument after Hince's Moog broke and couldn't be repaired before entering the studio. A 40-minute DVD documentary was included with a limited number of copies and features interview, performance and on the road footage shot on tour.

The first single, "The Good Ones", from No Wow , was released on February 7, 2005 and reached number 23 in the .

Mosshart features in the Placebo 's album Meds , released on March 13, 2006 in the UK, and on April 4, 2006 in the US. She also features on the album .

Midnight Boom

"Midnight Boom " was released in March 2008. That month, Mosshart was featured in the BBC documentary "The Mighty Boosh: A Journey Through Time and Space".

The album found a lot of new fans through its music being used throughout many young American TV shows, including 90210. A big selection of songs from the album were featured within hit series Gossip Girl, and also, their track 'Sour Cherry' was featured as the soundbed for Season Two's official trailer.

The album also picked up new mainstream success for the band with various big TV performances in the UK; appearing on Later With Jools Holland, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, T4, The Album Chart Show, Sound, Live From Abbey Road, and From The Basement.

On October 21, 2008, "Cheap and Cheerful" was used on the show House during the opening scene of the episode "NHL 09 soundtrack. It was later used in the Fendi 's TV commercial for the "Fan di Fendi" perfume (2010). "U.R.A. Fever" was played during a love scene in the 2010 movie . Only the chorus of the song is played. "U.R.A. Fever" was heard in the 2010 film , as well as appearing on its soundtrack.

The bonus song "Night Train" appeared in the 2009 remake of the film Friday The 13th.

Blood Pressures

On September 11, 2009, it was announced on the band's MySpace page that they had begun work on their fourth studio album though no release date had been set.

The Kills ' fourth studio album, Blood Pressures , was released in April 2011. A video for the first single from Blood Pressures, "Satellite", was released on February 9, 2011."Future starts slow" was also used in a promotion for the episode 'The Wait Is Almost Over' of hit TV series .

Discography Studio albums

Keep on Your Mean Side (2003)

No Wow (2005)

Midnight Boom (2008)

Blood Pressures (2011)

References

^ ISBN .

: Do Or Die, by Matt Schild, accessed October 30, 2006

Official website

Last.fm

at Dim Mak Records

Allmusic