By Josh Herwitt //
The Kills //
The Glass House – Pomona, CA
July 28th, 2015 //
It can take a lot to convince someone to drive 45 miles into the depths of LA’s eastern edge to see a show on a weeknight in late July. But there I was, cruising along Interstate 10 on my way to Pomona, one of Southern California’s often forgotten-about live music outposts amid the more plentiful and prestigious concert venues throughout LA.
I had only made the trek to Pomona for a show one other time, and to be quite honest, I didn’t think I would again — not because I had an unpleasant experience the first time, but more because there hadn’t been the need or desire to do so. With LA serving largely as Southern California’s musical hotbed, there has been little reason to ever venture outside its borders in order to see live music.
Often times when bands tour now, they will play a gig within LA’s city limits and also book shows in a surrounding city, whether it be farther out east in Pomona or down south in Santa Ana. But with The Kills in town for only two nights during their relatively short, 13-date tour across North America this summer, I was left with little choice but to choose the road less taken, so off I went.
It’s worth mentioning that The Kills haven’t put out an album in more than four years, with their latest release Blood Pressures coming out in 2011. But frontwoman Alison Mosshart is getting ready to drop a new record with Jack White and The Dead Weather this September, and guitarist Jamie Hince has had his hands full this month in preparing for the divorce from his wife and celebrity model Kate Moss. So, with a new album still being written and worked on at the moment, why on Earth were The Kills stopping in Pomona of all places before taking off for Montreal to play Osheaga Music and Arts Festival just a few days later?
If anything, this mini-tour has given the London duo a chance to reconnect onstage and test out some new material while on the road. The previous night at LA’s El Rey Theatre, Mosshart and Hince debuted three new songs in fact, with “Impossible Tracks” and “Echo Home” being played back-to-back midway through their set before “Doing It to Death” came a few songs later, right after fan favorite “Baby Says”. And the same went for the sold-out crowd at The Glass House, the 800-person room that came to life quickly when the house lights dimmed and Mosshart and Hince emerged with an ensemble of drummers just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
I had seen The Kills perform nine months earlier, when they served as one of three openers for Queens of the Stone Age’s Halloween bash at The Forum this past October. And while they put on a strong showing then, things — believe it or not — were actually taken up a notch in Pomona. Running through all of their hits, starting with “Future Starts Slow” and finishing with “Fried My Little Brains” from 2005’s No Wow to conclude their three-song encore, The Kills, for lack of a better phrase, killed it, leaving nothing on the table after 90 minutes.
Mosshart, tall and slender, strutted her way through just about all of it, displaying a bravado that exudes both sex and confidence, while Hince handled his axe like a bona fide rock star, eventually playing some slide guitar during the gritty, blues-infused track “Pots and Pans” that got the crowd roaring after it was over. After all, it’s that blues/garage-rock overlap, along with the chemistry exhibited between Mosshart and Hince onstage, that makes The Kills such a captivating rock ‘n’ roll act to see live these days. And if that meant going the extra distance to witness it first hand, well then, it was damn well worth it.
The focus on larger themes of mortality and spirituality in Modern Vampires of the City have catapulted this indie group from angst-ridden collegians to mainstream players — and in the process Ezra Koenig and company crafted an American classic. Compulsively listenable, this record matured with age in 2013, just like the artistic path Vampire Weekend seem to be on. The album continuously waxes poetically about death and higher powers, and “Unbelievers” sums it up best: “Girl you and I will die unbelievers, bound to the tracks of the train.” The ambiguousness is biting, as it is tough to tell if the statement is earnest atheism or harsh criticism of Godless existence. In “Step”, we’re told, “Wisdom’s a gift but you’ll trade it for youth, age is an honor it’s still not the truth…we know the true death, the true way of all flesh. Everyone’s dying, but girl – you’re not old yet.” Even “Dianne Young” is a double entendre for ‘dying young’. Every track is filled with high-level substance lyrically, but sonically it’s multi-faceted as well, melding baroque sensibilities and African grooves at a wonderfully variant pace throughout. Ultimately, it’s a supremely empowering coming of age album from Vampire Weekend, one that stares mortality in the face while celebrating time’s finite quality. 
Early in Run The Jewels, Killer Mike announces, “Producer gave me a beat, said it’s the ‘beat of the year’, I said ‘El-P didn’t do it, so get the fuck outa here.’ El-P, the sole producer of rap music’s most dynamic duo, bases his production in captivating weirdness, micro-sampling everything from classic organ to nintendo glitch sounds to electric guitar, building epic beats for Killer Mike & El-P to deliver clever rhymes, based both in reality and playful hyperbole. One of Run The Jewels’ greatest successes is that it can be both funny and deadly serious within the same song, and often within in the same flow or line at times. So motherfuckin’ grimy, “Job Well Done” highlights how successfully dolphin sounds can contrast with aggressive lyricism, for example. Killer Mike broaches serious topics, bringing up the “elephant in the room” whenever possible, and EL-P is hyperactive and light-hearted as he spits his ‘future shit’. Put these two together and you have the best hip hop album in years. 
The beauty is in the build with FOALS, and that is the case with Holy Fire more than prior album as the UK-based festival-headliners-in-the-making have largely abandoned their post-dance punk sound aesthetic for a more ballad-based approach. Sure, “My Number” and “Providence” continue the upbeat, math rock-dance-freak-outs, but overall FOALS have centered their 2013 record around patient song development in order to establish more memorable, ecstatic moments. “Milk & Black Spiders” does just that, taking a full three minutes and forty five seconds to reach it’s blissful summit. “Late Night” is a harrowing slow burner, repeating the line, “Calling out your name,” asking for the subject of the song to “Stay with me.” Lead singer Yannis Philippakis’ impassioned vocals, paired with the band’s guitar interplay and non-standard rhythms make FOALS a unique force in the world of modern rock.
Matt Berninger has a way with words — who else could make the phrase “full of punks and cannonballers” sound eloquent and measured in the track “I Need My Girl”? The National thrives on non-literal lyricism, but the instrumental elements from The National in Trouble Will Find Me prop the singing up on a pedestal better than prior records. Void of any filler, this contemplative record easily allows the listener to take their own meaning from any given track, applying it internally. The first half impresses quickly with “I Should Live In Salt” through “Sea Of Love”, but it is the second half that solidifies the effort as The National’s best work to date. An album that also gets more addictive with subsequent listens, Trouble Will Find Me works well as both a “pick me up” record and one to embrace life’s good times, an odd duality indeed.
Who needs Bon Iver when Justin Vernon is making music like he has with The Shouting Matches and Volcano Choir in 2013? Vernon, the creative centerpiece behind Bon Iver, announced while promoting Repave that Volcano Choir is his new band. Arguably, this is a genius move, as Vernon is exhibiting a higher level of confidence and innovation with this possibly permanent collaboration with members of Collections of Colonies of Bees. Repave traverses a path that balances grandiose and minimalism, choosing off-beat, unexpectedly contrasting moments to ‘drop the sound hammer’ in both “Comrade” and “Byegone”. “Drop the sound hammer” refers to the mesmerizing technique Volcano choir uses to quickly transition from falsetto-based minimalist intros into hard-hitting Philip Glass-like synth blasts and authoritative drums. I’m fine with Vernon considering himself a legend, as long as he continues creating music with cryptic, poetic lyrics and the progressive intermingling of intense and soothing sounds. 
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