Posted October 15, 2020 by Jeff in Tunes
 
 

The Kills Offer a ‘Musical Refresher’ with New Rarities Album

Little Bastards, The Kills
Little Bastards, The Kills

Noisy indie rockers the Kills just announced that they’ll release Little Bastards, a career-spanning B-sides and rarities album on Domino on Dec. 11. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD and digital. The reissue will mark the first-ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

The compilation includes the unreleased and never-before-heard demo “Raise Me” from the 2008-2009 Midnight Boom era. The duo — Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince — produced and directed a new video for the bluesy tune.

Originally recorded on the fly to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, the songs have long been out-of-print. “Little bastard” was the nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine which enabled their initial existence as a band of only two members for the first half of their career.

“It was a Roland 880,” says Hince in a press release, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine — it’s a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.”

The deluxe double LP comes on neon yellow vinyl and is housed in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves.

Other LP highlights include “I Call It Art” from the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited covers compilation, the Midnight Boom digital bonus track “Night Train,” a live performance of “Love Is a Deserter” from an XFM radio session and covers of a handful of classic American roots songs (Howlin’ Wolf’s “Forty Four,” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You” and Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby”).

The Kills’ last releases — 2016’s Ash & Ice and a 2018 cover of Saul Williams’ “List Of Demands” b/w Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” – marked 15 years since their first album as the Kills, 2003’s Keep On Your Mean Side.

“As performers, their chemistry is unmatched and unfettered; magnetic and enthralling whether drenched in guitar feedback or delivering a piano-led torch song under a single spotlight,” reads a press release about the reissue. “The Kills have transcended whatever genres first claimed them and inhabit an entirely unique place in music culture. They are themselves. Inimitable and unparalleled, Little Bastards is a musical refresher manifest as a shot of pure adrenaline. Enjoy the memories. Long may they blaze.”