Alison Mosshart is better known these days as the man-eating sidekick to Jack White in The Dead Weather than her band The Kills. On Blood Pressures she has the same swagger that she carried on Sea of Cowards and proves that she doesn’t need Jack White by her side to make an intensely modern blues record. That’s not saying she doesn’t need a man. The Kills British guitarist Jamie Hince teams nicely with the American born Moshart to create a bluesy duo, that have been kicking it out for over ten years now.
The bluesly blood of this album runs from the same vein of so much that has come out recently. The Black Key’s, The Dead Weather, The White Stripes, but what is different is that all of these bands are helping each other out. This is The Kills fourth studio album, and maybe their finest, because of an entire kicked back, bluesy music scene working together and pushing each other. Well maybe Jack White is pushing all of them.
On most songs on Blood Pressures Hince and Mosshart combine the low and high vocals, half talking, half singing over broken dirty guitar licks and a steady kick and snare. While it’s a solid beefed up effort from the garage rock duo, there is only so much you can do cornering yourself in this washed out blues sound. The album really runs together at parts, and we get it you’re tough and sexy. But if you are going to play bluesy, ballsy rock, you’re going to have to dig deeper than that. Overall a solid record that leaves some room to grow.
“Alison Mosshart is better known these days as the man-eating sidekick to Jack White in The Dead Weather than her band The Kills.”
Depends on who you ask. Some of us remember her as “the girl in Discount”.