No Wow

Artist: The Kills
Label: RCA
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Explicit Lyrics
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 828766640328
EAN: 0828766640328
ASIN: B00078XKDE

Release Date: 2005-03-08

No Wow

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Tracks:

No Wow
Love Is A Deserter
Dead Road 7
The Good Ones
I Hate The Way You Love
I Hate The Way You Love Part 2
At The Back Of The Shell
Sweet Cloud
Rodeo Town
Murdermile
Ticket Man

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Amazon.com

On their sophomore release, the Kills come on like a post-punk version of Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter--with "hate" tattooed on one hand, "love" on the other. Lyrics reference the two to the extent that there's even a song called "I Hate the Way You Love" (plus a slow version, "I Hate the Way You Love, Pt. 2"). Similarly, VV (Alison Mosshart) sings like a cross between PJ Harvey and Christina Martinez (Boss Hog). And yet, despite lines like, "Get the guns out" ("Love is a Deserter") and "Lost a lot of blood" ("At the Back of the Shell"), No Wow is too catchy to be a bummer (must be "love" asserting its presence). VV and Hotel (Jamie Hince) make their songs move and groove with a minimum of fuss, mostly just some grubby guitar, unobtrusive drum machine, and Suicide-like electronic pulses. Mitchum would surely approve. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews:

this band rocks .......2006-09-07

The parallels to early PJ Harvey (and White Stripes) are on cue. If you like minimalist crunchy/bluesy rock with punk undertones, especially with searing female vocals, then this is the band for you. The music of Chrissie Hynde, Kim Deal, and Joan Jett also come to mind. The Kills aren't mimicking these greats, they are unquestionably unique, but they have definitely tapped into the same incredible sound.

The Kills are like eating 90% cocoa chocolate - not much sugar or cream, but overpoweringly dark and delicious. Not everybody has the taste for it, but those who do will love this.

Rock Fast, Die Young.......2006-03-13

Greasy like unwashed hair. Frantic like a smack addict looking for a fix. Dirty like an inner city squat. The Kills make music that feels like it's been made in a filthy apartment with no décor save for an ashtray full of yellowing cigarette stubs and a couch smeared with indecipherable stains. Like the Mickey and Mallory of the US alternative music scene, Alison `VV' Mosshart and Jamie `Hotel' Hince have created a snarling opus on No Wow that seductively recalls PJ Harvey at her most enthralling. After making a name for themselves on the back of 2004 debut Keep On Your Mean Side, the second album found the partnership between VV and Hotel laying down their sound in a Michigan ghost town. Resulting single The Good Ones is currently getting plenty of radio play and Rage is enjoying the sexy presentation of VV in the video, yet there's a sinister element to the music of The Kills that can't be underestimated. Lyrics such as `I can't get full. Please could you fix my shakes' indicate that I Hate The Way shares more than just a tempo shift with The Velvet Underground's incredible tune Heroin, while the aloof lyrics of Rodeo Town - `If I am so evil, why are you satisfied?' - offer further evidence of a bleak partnership. Of course, like Natural Born Killers, it's bound to end in violence and murder, but No Wow's still a neat ride through makeshift percussion, panicky guitar and haunted vocals. A DVD is included so you can make up your own mind about their chemical and personal addictions, but it's fairly obvious The Kills are more Black Plague than White Stripe.

Strange... but who ever said that was a bad thing?.......2005-09-30

I had no idea what to expect when I popped in the CD. I only bought it because of vague good memories of the reviews and because I liked the name of their previous album (Keep On Your Mean Side). I popped it in, and...
1. No Wow- ...I was greeted by a sinister, strangely compelling fuzz. After I was comptetely addicted to the sound itself, the voice came, and I was hooked. Telephone Radio Germany is at the end of this or the beginning of Love Is A Deserter. I can't quite tell, but that's the only part of the album I regularly skip anyway.
2. Love Is A Deserter- I love a song where, when the singer tells you to sleep, you suddenly become wide awake and watchful. This is one of them ("Hammering In My Head" by Garbage is another).
3. Dead Road 7- I can feel the lonely, winding road...
4. The Good Ones- Seemingly wistful, maybe even happy, until they start talking about being self-destructive to make yourself appreciate what is around.
5. I Hate The Way You Love- My favorite. It has some of the best lyrics on the CD, as well as a nicely insane feeling.
6. I Hate The Way You Love Pt. 2- She mournfully, beautifully sings "I hate the way you love" over and over.
7. At The Back Of The Shell- Playground hand clapping and boldly attacking words.
8. Sweet Cloud- More good lyrics: "I love him so, in turn I kill. I know no words to make it right."
9. Rodeo Town- She bitterly asks, "If I'm so evil, why are you satisfied?"
10. Murdermile- A fast, wild, raucous song interspersed with a guy saying "You've got me on the wrong track honey."
11. Ticket Man- A nicely melancholy song that sounds like it was sung during the Great Depression, at least to me, because of the simplicity and worry.

Totally awesome.......2005-07-28

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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