Three years between albums might seem a long time for a lo-fi, low-budget, cutting-edge duo with a drum machine. But the only real surprise about Blood Pressures, the fourth album by the Kills, which is released today, is that it didn’t take them even longer to get round to it. Since their last album together Alison Mosshart (aka VV) has released and toured two albums in her role as the singer in Jack White’s band the Dead Weather, while the guitarist Jamie Hince (aka Hotel) has acquired reflected celebrity status as the fiancé of Kate Moss.
These diversions were quickly forgotten as the Anglo-American pair of enfants terrible arrived on a murkily-lit stage and proceeded to put on a surprisingly business-like performance as they navigated their way through a set-list heavily weighted in favour of songs from the new album. No longer so young (Mosshart is 32 and Hince now 42) or so terrible, they have evolved from the feral, snarling approach of their early shows of ten years ago into a considerably more polished and accessible performing unit.
Certain trademarks remain, of course. Mosshart still strode around the stage like a distracted vampire, hips thrusting back and forth and a curtain of jet-black hair obscuring her face, as she belted out her vocal parts and dabbled occasionally on guitar or keyboard or banged a drum. Hince, meanwhile, masterminded the sludgy alt.blues guitar riffs and managed the drum machine beats, while supplying discreet but effective ballast in the vocal department.
But there was a heightened melodic sophistication to new songs such as Future Starts Slow and Heart is a Beating Drum, which suggested a musical ambition that now goes beyond a desire merely to startle the horses. Three backing singers materialised at the side of the stage during the swamp-rock groove of DNA and supplied a haunting, pseudo-gospel chant to another new song, Satellite, which bowled along with an infectious neo-reggae beat.
The Last Goodbye, which found Mosshart singing with quite startling precision while Hince played a keyboard, was a ballad as near as damn it. The show ended with the percussion-heavy chant of Pots and Pans followed by a return to the primal shriek and stomp of Fried my Little Brains. It was reassuring to see that there was still a bit of the old lunatic aggression left in them yet.
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Tour starts at Cental Methodist Hall, Manchester, on May 27 and ends at the Roundhouse, London NW1, on June 3