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A few years ago, HarperCollins published Hip: The History, a tour through the Bowery, beatniks, be-bop and pulp fiction in search of the essence of cool. Lazy scholars will be just as well served with a spin of the CliffsNotes: the Kills’ third LP, Midnight Boom. And spin it does. This is a tumbling, propulsive record. Before, the duo built stark songs with blues riffs cut and chopped like coke; now, with production assistance by XXXChange of Spank Rock, a Baltimore troop noted for raunchy dance-rap, the Kills roll, not rock.
The rhythms pump and spark like engine pistons. Each track conjures the image of a warped vinyl LP spinning on a plastic garage-sale turntable: Handclaps and strums mimic a needle hopping and scraping across the grooves. The unmade percussive bed on “Getting Down” clicks like trading cards stuck in the spokes of a motorcycle; terse guitar explosions burst along the road. Riding along, Jamie “Hotel” Hince and Alison “VV” Mosshart dress their vocal chords up like Lou Reed and Chrissie Hynde for the album’s endless Halloween dance, and the two nicotine nosferatus moan and bark for black candy throughout.
In creating such a disheveled, scrap-heap record, the Kills have done something many consider impossible: make rock & roll sound new. Rumor has it the band scrapped a labored-over effort in favor of this last-minute, id-indulging, finger-snapping racket. To reach the godhead of hip, push it in the red and don’t think. Wearing seven different pairs of sunglasses in the liner notes doesn’t hurt, either.
