The Kills

The Kills haven't let artistic progression compromise their minimalism. For nearly ten years, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince have offered a defiant, stripped-down brand of indie rock, music that's reveled in the power of stark and simplistic ingredients. While 2008's Midnight Boom showed a maturation of sound and sentiment from previous releases like 2005's No Wow and 2003's Keep Your Mean Side, the two have kept their love for the lo-fi. The brooding, resigned "Black Balloon" boasts a higher degree of studio polish on its tracks, but retains Mosshart's primal feeling and Hince's straightforward, unadorned chords. It's a sound made for smaller clubs and theaters. The open-air, expansive setting of last year's Monolith festival at Red Rocks proved a less-than-ideal forum for the band's spare sound; the confines of the Fox may prove a more apt forum for its post-punk aesthetic.