Blood Pressures is the recently released fourth album from the The Kills, the Anglo-American rock duo Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart. While their previous offerings (the last being Midnight Bloom in 2008) were well received by fans, it was generally thought that their music still had something of an insular, niche feel to it.
While The Kills are still purveyors of edgy cool, you can't help but wonder if the more inclusive feel to their music has something to do with their ever-increasing individual profiles. Mosshart famously collaborated with Jack White to form The Dead Weather and Hince, meanwhile, is due to marry Kate Moss in the summer.
Now, bear in mind that Moss takes celebrity to another level. She has been famous for more than 20 years, yet should she put on a kilo of weight or have a couple of inches shorn from her hair, headlines are guaranteed. With this is mind, perhaps it is time for Hince to take some of the limelight.
If early reviews are anything to go by, this might be the record to help him do just that. Andy Gill, writing for The Independent observed that with their new material: "The Kills are developing in a direction that could yet find them in a head-on collision with the mainstream." This feeling is reiterated by Jordan Zivitz in The Montreal Gazette: "Less than one minute into Blood Pressures, it's clear they are out to embrace the world this time."
