No Wow

The Kills | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 8, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B00078XKDE
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,777 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. No Wow/Telephone Radio Germany

2. Love Is a Deserter

3. Dead Road 7

4. The Good Ones

5. I Hate the Way You Love

6. I Hate the Way You Love, Pt. 2

7. At the Back of the Shell

8. Sweet Cloud

9. Rodeo Town

10. Murdermile

11. Ticket Man

Editorial Reviews

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

Product Description

UK LP pressing. The Kills are VV (vocals, guitar) and Hotel (drums, vocals, guitar), and they're finally ready to end the wait. 'No Wow' is their heavily anticipated follow-up to 2002's Keep On Your Mean Side, and the album's seminal sweating, sultry stomp is sure to cause a stir. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minimal greatness, March 12, 2005

By 

Tankery "Tankery" (New Orleans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: No Wow (Audio CD)

So a guy and a girl want to make music and they get slammed for ripping off White Stripes. Come on.

I am enjoying this CD more than about any this year. Her voice is odd and compelling and compliments the jagged, hard driving minimalistic guitar work like nothing I've heard in awhile.

I don't care if they use drum machines. They do it better and more creatively than REM did it when their drummer called it quits. Drummers are probably hard to find and then you have to pay them and haul around all their equipment. (Besides if I had a lead singer that looked like her I would say, "No, no. We don't need anybody else. Not even a roadie. Just, ah, you and me, wink, okay?"

Seriously though. This is a great album from a band that hopefully will keep cranking it out. Jack White may have called attention to this raw, garage-like approach to music but a group like the Kills are extending this approach in their own unique direction.

It's refreshing, the lyrics are clever and interesting, and it has a hard-rocking, bluesy edge to it that makes for many and many quality listens.

(And yeah, she sounds like PJ Harvey. I have no problem with that. Hey we are what we eat. That's better than sounding like Stevie Nicks)

Author of:
A Bottle of Rain
Nowhere Near the Sea of Cortez

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Totally awesome, July 28, 2005

By 

peteandcarlsgirl "Albion Girl" (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Wow (Audio CD)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good release ... Midnight Boom is better!, May 31, 2008

By 

M. Bauer (Evansville, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: No Wow (Audio CD)

good album ... buy "Midnight Boom" if you're choosing between the two!
The sound is edgier and raw and they're honed in to a level that is near perfection.