Domino
2008
Midnight Boom
About This Album
In the three years between No Wow and Midnight Boom, it sounds like the Kills discovered that having fun is actually much cooler than searching for haughty minimalist rock perfection. While Keep on Your Mean Side and No Wow's sinuous snarls were about as savagely spare and sexy as it's possible to get, their minimalism bordered on monochromatic. Midnight Boom bleeds color, excitement, and emotion into VV and Hotel's music, transforming it into daring, dirty pop that is unrepentantly glamorous and tender, high-end and trashy, and it glitters like diamonds mixed with broken glass. It's even structured like a classic pop album, opening with two bold salvos: "U.R.A. Fever" fashions dial tones, cryptically sexy banter, a foot-stomping, hand-clapping beat, and sneering shards of guitar into a fiercely catchy single. It struts with the best of the Kills' previous work, but opens their sound to many more possibilities. "Cheap and Cheerful" gets even wilder, combining VV's high-maintenance sass with a rhythm forged out of slamming doors and coughing, approximating a collaboration between Joan Jett and Matmos. These songs, and the rest of Midnight Boom, are nearly as minimalist as the Kills' other albums, but the duo plays with sounds much more: spring-loaded guitars and fanciful, detailed beats pop up when least expected, but everything falls into place effortlessly.
Track List (try tracks 5,7,8,11 and 12)

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