The Musicgoer: The Kills' Midnight Boom

THE KILLS
Midnight Boom
(Domino)
**** (out of 5)

The title of The Kills’ new CD comes from the Jack Kerouac novel The Subterraneans—the narrator has just lashed out for no good reason at an earnest young writer, almost out of irritation at what an easy target he makes. Oh well, Kerouac shrugs; the world’s a mean place. “And what we gonna do? And where? When? And wha wha wha, the baby bawls in the midnight boom.”

The music on Midnight Boom shares Kerouac’s mood of appealingly misanthropic aggression, only fueled by cocaine and speed instead of Kerouac’s ever-present bottle of booze. These are lean, mean shots of scenester postpunk—guitar, vocals, drum machine—and they’re at their best when they’re hurling out insults that are no less stinging for being incomprehensible: “He’s an alphabet pony!” “Farewell, my black balloon!” “You’re the only sour cherry on the fruit stand!” “I want you to be crazy, baby, cuz you’re stupid when you’re straight.” Or are those actually compliments? I can’t tell—it’s hard to get a read on singer Alison Mosshart when she won’t take off those sunglasses. All I know is the songs are damn catchy, and they’re so sexy that I wish she were singing about me.