America is having a renewed love affair with B-movies: between the last year’s worth of hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane and the current publicity maelstrom of Grindhouse, it seems this country is all about camp and circumstance.
So should it really come as a surprise that the genre’s music is enjoying regeneration as well? My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult—that veteran industrial band with a stage show of lunatics and lasers—is back. But this time they’ve stepped out of the peep-show theater and into the lizard lounge downtown.
TKK is still rocking the deep horn riffs and heavy wails; their synths remain unapologetic, and the instruments play pre-sets. But TKK no longer provides musical backdrop for a subculture; this time, they’re starting their own.
The opener “Cadillac Square” finds an unexpected melding of pop-industrial and hip-hop, as if Pop Will Eat Itself met the Beasties while trolling for hookers. Upon bedding said hooker, TKK channels Tricky with the rasp-rap soliloquy “Jet Set Sex.” But it isn’t until “High Class Taboo”—which recalls humor rockers Mr. Bungle—that hilarity of hookerdom emerges.
Yes, this album has the elements of a great B-movie: It’s fun and dizzying, electric and engaging; the stock characters are sexy and deplorable; and closer “Covergirl Blues” provides climactic chase from lounge to club to musical victory for MLWTTKK.