They are rock & roll's most fearless duo: enigmatic, multi-faceted, minimalist. The Kills, composed of Jamie Hince (guitar/vox, hails from England) and Alison Mosshart (vocals, USA born and bred) are returning to Australia for what would be their first visit in five years.
Riding off the back of their fifth longplayer, Ice & Ash, which is set for release in June, The Kills will be killing stages in Melbourne and Sydney.
"The effortless cool of Allison Mosshart and Jamie Hince is never-ending. The duo’s newest single, “Doing It To Death”, doesn’t skip a beat from band’s previous catalog of grit-grinding musical bliss." – Monster Children
"Nothing says a nightcap like the electronic-infused guitars of The Kills. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart possess onstage chemistry so rare that seeing it in the flesh is a legitimate thrill" – Spin @ SXSW 2016
"Allison Mosshart does frantic laps around the stage as Jamie Hince delivers snarling riff after riff, smacking his poor guitar with waves of crunched reverb knocking back the front row. It’s dangerous, loud and exciting, just as rock ‘n’ roll should be." – Clashmusic.com
With single ‘Doing It To Death’ out now, Ash & Ice was recorded in Hince’s rented Los Angeles home and at New York City’s infamous Electric Lady Studios, produced by Hince and John O'Mahoney (Metric, The Cribs).
The Kills bristle with tension, anxiety, sex, and unstudied cool as showcased in their 2003 debut album Keep On Your Mean Side (which introduced us with tracks like ‘Fried My Little Brains’) 2005’s unwavering No Wow (watch the title track here), 2008’s Midnight Boom (which saw singles like ‘U R A Fever’) and 2011’s Blood Pressures (‘Satellite’ and ‘Future Starts Slow’). The 13-track Ash & Ice is another excellent statement.
“I wanted there to be more soul, more groove in it," Hince told the Village Voice in a recent interview (read here) of the journey to Ash & Ice. To begin, Hince found himself with an unexpected challenge: six surgeries, a tendon transplant, and 18 months of rehab to heal a broken finger, following a car door slam. “He couldn’t play guitar,” Mosshart recalls of her bandmate, who “began buying all these funny instruments that you would only need one hand to play”. It was during this period of recovery that Hince first began mapping out songs, including ‘Let It Begin’.
He also embarked on a 9,650km train trip – solo – on the Trans-Siberian Express, where he was inspired to write ‘Siberian Nights’ and other songs. “I wanted to go away somewhere on my own and find out what I had in me,” Hince says. “I took my guitar, all my notebooks and a camera. I had this vision of the record being this icy, paranoid record as I was travelling through Siberia. But the rest of the songs are more about the emotion, the struggle”.
Mosshart meanwhile was busy relocating to Nashville, recording, and on the road touring with The Dead Weather – her explosive side project with Jack White. Also an acclaimed visual artist, she staged her first solo show, ‘Fire Power’, at New York’s Joseph Gross Gallery, featuring painting, drawing, mixed media and tapestries in 2015. Constantly writing for The Kills since their last release, Mosshart was determined the pair would head in a brand new direction. “If Ash & Ice were a painting, it would be incredibly complex. It would be one that looked like it had been painted over and over and over and over. It would be so thick off the wall, it would be coming through the frame”.
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