Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Believer
3. Lips Like Morphine
4. Black Poison Blood
5. Love You to Death
6. The Collapse
7. Statues Without Eyes
8. Crazy Angel
9. Under the Milky Way
10. Songs That Saved My Life
11. Scream
12. Outro

Kill Hannah continues to pluck pages from Chicago’s famed power pop rock history with its latest disc, Until There’s Nothing Left Of Us and ultimately end up as just a footnote, huffing the exhaust from some rusted-out skeletal relic of a once flourishing scene.

Mat Devine’s hyper-androgynous vocals evoke a world of ersatz futurism, while streamlined choruses and metallic guitar bursts sound at once vaguely uplifting and inspirationally flattened: merely a cardboard shell of band attempting to retrace sulfuric wisps of maligned melody.

Until There’s Nothing Left Of Us fails to expand upon the band’s last big label excursion into electrically inclined glam (2003’s For Never and Ever) and sounds more like a b-sides comp than a new album (only the faint trace of discopunk hi-hat seems like a recent development). In fact, “Lips Like Morphine” sounds like the sister track to the band’s previous single, “Kennedy.” Both songs fester with self-doubt and crestfallen daydreaming (lyrical ambiguity abounds: “I wanna a girl with lips like morphine” vs. “I wanna be a Kennedy” – the group’s songwriting has only become less concise) as melodies and instrumentation fall into step. But where “Kennedy” effervesced a certain dance floor euphoria (comparable to Head Automatica’s Dan the Automator-produced debut), “Lips Like Morphine” sounds dated and anthemic when it could be bodyrock electric.

And as one of Billy Corgan’s fave rock outfits, it’s no surprise that Kill Hannah winds up copping Smashing Pumpkins-esque (albeit, late-era Smashing Pumpkins) atmospherics with the e-bowed antics of “Black Poison Blood” and lapping alt-rock stance of “Statues Without Eyes.” “Crazy Angel” sports a ludicrously dumb chorus and even a straightforward rendition of the Church’s beautiful “Under The Milky Way” lacks spontaneity and dynamism.

Throughout, the album writhes with overproduction and a stageface preoccupation with showmanship (at the sake of originality). While discussing “One of those days where nothing feels right,” “The Collapse” is a song that could easily be inserted into one of any vast number of bands repertoires. Overall, the album is sanded-down pomp, avoiding any all out duds at the cost of losing every trace of mystery and surprise. An older track, like the fabulous “Nerve Gas” (from 1999’s American Jet Set) would sound alien, buried in such a neutral landscape: an aural arena devoid of jutting phosphor and enthralling vistas.

While still blessed with an otherworldly knack for unearthing seismic melodic interplay and blissfully tectonic guitar riffs, Kill Hannah seems at a loss to create anything original, leaving one to wonder if there really is nothing left of this once intrepid Chicago rock group.

MP3:
Lips Like Morphine
Under the Milky Way

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under Record Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.