After a seven-year hiatus, The Kills have returned with dual singles. Two unconventional homages to both U.S. coasts, “New York” and “LA Hex” are The Kills’ personal missives to both ends of the country. The releases mark the first new music from the duo since Ash & Ice in 2016.
Videos by American Songwriter
Speak for me / Bleed for me / Steal me away, from all the bad guys / Cus’ I’m nice, sings Alison “VV” Mosshart through the crunching thumps of “New York.” The song drives straight into the crustier, dustier and jinxed ends of Los Angeles on “LA Hex” — The city got witchy all of a sudden / All of the blocks dried up and lost.
The singles are accompanied by two videos, directed by Andrew Theodore Balasia (Prada, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery). Mosshart and Jamie “Hotel” Hince are bloodied up at the boxing ring in “New York” and caught between the desolate and dustier parts of Los Angeles on “LA Hex.”
Mosshart also painted the artwork for both singles linked to some of the series of painted playing cards she’s created in the past.
Following the release Ash & Ice, the band released a collection of their B-sides and rarities on Little Bastards in 2020. The project included the previously unreleased demo “Raise Me.” The duo also reissued their second album, No Wow (The Tchad Blake Mixes) in 2022, which featured remastered and reimagined mixes of the album.
Formed in 2001, The Kills released its debut album, Keep on Your Mean Side, in 2003 and its most recent, fifth album, Ash & Ice, in 2016. During the pandemic, Mosshart also released two solo singles, “Rise” and “It Ain’t Water,” followed by her book Car Ma, a collection of short stories, poetry, paintings, and photography centered around cars and rock and roll.
“Part of being in a band for 18 years and still doing it and still being relevant,” Hince told American Songwriter in 2020. “You have to be adaptable and be really resilient. So, we’ve used this time to our advantage. We’re writing as much as we can, being as creative as we can for when the doors open and the future is bright again.”
Mosshart added, “I’m in full agreement. I think there is going to be art and music and a philosophical renaissance of some sort. I have to believe that. When the gate opens, we will all get to run through it.”
Listen to “New York” and “LA Hex” below.
Photo: Myles Hendrik / Courtesy of TCB Public Relations
