THE KILLS have strutted and pouted their way effortlessly into the higher echelons of popular indie music with a cocksure formula that has cleverly ransacked all the right moves, melodies and moods to deliver an ice cool rock ‘n’ roll confection. Theirs is the kind of music that instantly registers in the brain, combining a seamless and easy-to-digest infusion of ultra-hip influences (Stones, Stooges, T-Rex, Bowie, Moroder, Primal Scream) with an insistence and petulance that almost convinces that this is actually something new.
Oh to be a boy in the bubble or a 15 year old hearing this for the first time: how simultaneously invigorating and alien this sound must be, demanding your full attention and selfless devotion.
Of course it’s nowhere near as radical as it’s a la mode presentation suggests. ‘Love Is A Deserter’ has as its central theme the idea of ‘love versus passion’, arguing that it is the latter rather than the former that drives you on. As interesting as this idea is (not very) it’s really the music we’re interested in. Is it sexy? Is it raw? Is it dirty? Is it cool?
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Yes it’s all these things buffed and polished to belie their age and it’s skilled at being all of them. But it’s also inherently disposable and keeps the goalposts firmly in their current position. ‘Love Is A Deserter’ does not posit anything in your ears that you haven’t heard before. What it does do very well is assimilate a half dozen of your coolest records and package them into one neat and tidy bundle allowing you to savour those various influences in one hit. You want Glam, Krautrock, Punk and Indie to go? OK! You got it!
I still love it to bits, even though I doubt it'll be in the CD player in 6 months time.
Steadfastly transient and memorably forgettable.
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