The Kills’ work is music composed of Jimmy Hince’s stiff guitar parts, Alison Mosshart’s plucked vocals, and the rhythmic percussion parts of a drum machine. At concerts, Allison sometimes also serves as rhythm guitarist.
When The Kills found a reputable label that agreed to collaborate with them (Domino Records), they immediately started recording songs. In 2002 the band released their EP “Black Rooster”. In the USA Dim Mak Records distributed the EP. The record was something different from what Hince and Mosshart did in their previous bands, reminiscent more of Lo-Fi. In the music press, the young The Kills were immediately compared to The White Stripes, mostly because of the boy-girl format. The comparisons increased when The Kills recorded their first album “Keep On Your Mean Side” in the same studio (Toe Rag Studios) where The White Stripes recorded their famous record Elephant (in the same year of 2003).
Positioning themselves as a band opposed to the music industry, The Kills rarely gave interviews, but regularly invited the press to their private shows. Mosshart smoked cigarettes when she wasn’t singing, occasionally exchanging a few phrases with the audience, while Jamie silently played her parts, sometimes singing along to Alison. The second album, No Wow, released in 2005, contained fewer of the heavy guitar riffs that were so intrinsic to their first record, was made with a claim to a more “artistic” performance. The first single from the album, “The Good Ones,” was released on February 7, 2005 and reached number 23 on the UK singles charts. In 2007 The Kills wrote on their blog that work on the new album was finished. The first Single from the album was played on BBC Radio One on November 1. The record itself was released in 2008 and was called “Midnight Boom”.