After the White Stripes, it is no bad thing to be a boy-girl duo with the definite article in your band name and a mutant blues twist to your rock’n’roll. Distancing themselves from the pack with a drum machine in place of a drummer and an air of druggy cool in the style of the Velvet Underground, the Kills have been picked for success by the style press. Unfortunately, their second album lacks substance.

Their raw materials are flawless; the singer VV essays the blues like PJ Harvey and Patti Smith before her, a wasted moan perfectly complemented by Hotel’s bare, brutal riffs, like ancient blues licks harvested straight from the cotton fields. But, as their pulp fiction stage names suggest, there is posturing and stage-play here that do not really convince. Despite the eerie chill of their blues, the calculated coldness at their core jars. It feels cynical. In places their slow-burn blues works, the title track bubbles with menace like Nina Simone’s Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter, while the intimate murmur-pop of Murdermile happens upon a righteous Stonesy sway. Mostly, however, the Kills are a curiously bloodless experience, too cool to truly rock.

Stevie Chick

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