How serious are this Anglo-American couple about creating their own post-blues niche? Serious enough to have dropped their in-joke nicknames, Hotel and VV, and become Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart, at least. The Kills (no relation to the bopping Killers) put their arid, guitar-choked sound on the map with their debut, Keep on Your Mean Side, and this follow-up sees them getting comfortable there.
The group maintain that No Wow "explores the turbulent years in New York when punk turned into disco", but this claim is made on behalf of virtually all arty, 1970s-influenced albums, and actually means "much crackly nihilism, few disco thrills". Somehow, though, the Kills' sludge-coloured, super-lo-fi sulkiness charms despite itself. Mosshart sings like an alleycat, putting flesh on the bare bones of Hince's fuzzy guitar/drum machine structures. The two-part I Hate the Way You Love is a great amalgamation of female punk pioneers the Slits and primitive blues riffing, but if you're only going to hear one track, make it the faltering Dead Road 7, which may be the bleakest thing committed to tape this year.
