Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but ..., 8 Mar 2005
OK, so I don't listen to the radio or watch music tv anymore, so I took a chance on this record on the strength of a short review read quickly in a free paper. Particularly the likeness the review drew with The Velvet Underground.And I was impressed ! The tired Velvet Underground reference though is misleading, and probably refers to the bands black clothing, and the guitarists remarkable likeness to Lou Reed. Think Jesus and Marychain without guitar feedback, and Spaceman 3 without repeated looping and overlaid riffs, and you get something close to The Kills ... Pared back and insubstantial melodies delivered with energy and style sufficient to make something you can murmur along with. The songs are simple ... guitars direct ... drum machine put to inspired use. Good, but ... the female voice is tiresome ! The similarity with PJ Harvey is too close, and combined with the songs played with dampened chords (an early trademark of Polly Jeans' playing style !), I'm too distracted to take the music on it's own terms. 50% of this record can make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and my heart beat faster ... but most of that is when the guy's voice can be heard, or no-one is singing. Despite that ... highly recommended ! I'm confident it'll grow on me.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Slap In The Face . . ., 13 April 2005
By A Customer
Wow. And really, really wow, not just 'cos it's like the album's name. This one's a stunner. No Wow is the sort of album that after one listen might not impress much. Then you listen again, and again, and it quickly becomes a favourite. Or at least it has for me. Having heard 4 or 5 of the album tracks already, I knew what to expect. But I really isn't until you listen to the whole album that you hear such songs as lead single 'The Good Ones' and forthcoming single 'Love Is A Deserter', in context, at their best. Every song literally bristles with sexiness, with tension, as VV's moaning, strained vocals hover perfectly matched to Hotel's fuzzy guitar. Surely, if ever there was a match made in heaven, this was it. It's an album on which you have to take a long, long time to choose stand out tracks. For me, it's the songs where VV really lets loose, where you hear what she can really do with that voice of hers. On 'Rodeo Town', the most calm and, in my opinion, most beautiful, of all the album's songs, VV's vocals are gorgeous, the song itself is amazing. 'Sweet Cloud' is notable for its particularly bitter chorus 'I know no words to fix my killing, but I'd do anything to bring my brother alive', and its nagging hook, that will absolutely stick in your head for days. Now I've only mentioned the end half of the album so far, where the beginning is equally as good. The first 5 songs are just full of tension, the sort of pent up rock music that just makes you wanna pick up a guitar, or have sex, or drink, a lot. Something extreme anyway. As a record's beginning, they really knock you for six. Single 'The Good Ones' is the singular most sex-filled song I've ever known, it just bristles with energy, and it's dark lyrics really shine amongst The Kills' other babies. Then there's 'Dead Road 7' - phwoar, that girl can't half yell. It's a real shocker this one, but absolutely beautiful all at once. Future single 'Love Is A Deserter' asks us to 'Get the guns out' repeatedly, to a point where the message is so much hammered home that it is tempting to, indeed, get a gun out. Title track 'No Wow' really does deserve a wow, after all, what other song could pull off the first line: 'Gonna have to step over my dead body, before you walk out that door.' Now that, my friends is real music. Then, what other band could pull off this record? The Kills have successfully created a stand out album, which will be a definitive album this year. It's sexual, it's tense, it's taut, it's bare, sparse, torn apart, put back together again and bloody well put in a dual case for your listening pleasure. Now THAT's music. Again, altogether now, WOW.
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