Songs like The Kills: 10 tracks of cool, menacing garage rock

Songs like The Kills run on tension: a scratchy, looping guitar, a beat that never blinks, and two voices circling each other with more attitude than warmth. The appeal is cool menace, rock stripped to its nerves. Suicide's "Ghost Rider," Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Date with the Night" and The Dead Weather's "I Cut Like a Buffalo" share that same dangerous charge.

The Kills are Alison Mosshart on vocals and Jamie Hince on guitar, an American and English duo who debuted with Keep on Your Mean Side in 2003. No Wow (2005) and Midnight Boom (2008) sharpened the sound, Blood Pressures (2011) and Ash & Ice (2016) broadened it, and God Games arrived in 2023. Mosshart also sings in The Dead Weather.

What does The Kills sound like?

Most Kills songs sit at a prowling mid-tempo, built on a drum machine or a tight, mechanical beat rather than a loose drummer. Hince's guitar does the rest: choppy, distorted, blues-derived riffs that repeat until they become hypnotic, with plenty of noise and feedback at the edges. The early records are raw and lo-fi, almost bare; later albums add piano, fuller production and more space without losing the sense that only two people are in the room.

Mosshart's voice is the center of gravity, raspy and smoky, able to sneer and plead in the same line, while Hince adds harmonies and answering lines that make the songs feel like conversations. The mood is cool, sexy and a little dangerous, sometimes bruised. The themes return to desire, obsession, restlessness and relationships that pull two people together and apart at the same time. Nothing is overplayed: the tension comes from what's held back.

Songs like The Kills: 10 picks

1. The Velvet Underground, "I'm Waiting for the Man" (1967). A pounding, piano-hammered groove and a deadpan vocal about a street-corner errand. The cool detachment and relentless repetition at the core of The Kills start here.
2. Suicide, "Ghost Rider" (1977). A voice and a primitive drum machine pulse, nothing else needed. The clearest precedent for a duo making menace out of a machine beat.
3. The Gun Club, "Sex Beat" (1981). Punk speed, swampy blues guitar and a feverish vocal. The blues-gone-wrong attitude in Hince's riffs has deep roots in records like this.
4. PJ Harvey, "Down by the Water" (1995). A low, creeping groove and a vocal that's calm on the surface and chilling underneath. For fans of Mosshart's darker, storytelling side.
5. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)" (2001). Fuzz, leather-jacket cool and a chorus that sneers. A close peer from the same early-2000s garage revival.
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Date with the Night" (2003). Karen O's wild yelps over a scrappy, thrashing guitar from Fever to Tell. Another band where a magnetic frontwoman and a noisy guitarist carry everything.
7. The Raveonettes, "Love in a Trashcan" (2005). A Danish duo mixing fuzzed-out guitar with cool, sweet vocal harmonies. The two-voice interplay is close to Mosshart and Hince's.
8. The Dead Weather, "I Cut Like a Buffalo" (2009). Mosshart's band with Jack White behind the drums, all lurching rhythm and threat. The nearest thing to The Kills outside The Kills.
9. Wolf Alice, "Yuk Foo" (2017). A short, furious burst with a snarling vocal and a guitar that sounds close to breaking. A newer band with the same knack for menace in a small space.
10. Amyl and the Sniffers, "Hertz" (2021). Raw pub punk with a frontwoman who sounds like she's daring you to look away. The Kills' attitude, turned up and sped up.

Songs like The Kills prove that cool is a kind of tension: the less a song gives away, the harder it pulls you in.

Viper Junction songs that fit

Viper Junction is a Joshua Tree desert rock band whose debut album, Gasoline Hymn, shares The Kills' taste for dangerous love and garage rawness, with a powerful alto up front.

1. Close match: Viper Junction, "Paper Snake". The shortest song on Gasoline Hymn treats a stack of love letters as a disguised serpent, every line a lie that bit right through the envelope, until the narrator burns them because "ashes can't bite me twice." The poisoned-romance theme and the brevity are pure Kills; the sound leans toward walls of distortion rather than their skeletal two-piece setup.
2. Partial match: Viper Junction, "Burnt Letter". Track thirteen finds an old love letter in a guitar case and burns it, only to feel "seventeen again tonight." It shares the bruised, conflicted side of The Kills' ballads, but it's tender and confused where they tend to stay guarded.

More artists like The Kills

Past the ten picks, try Savages, Nova Twins, Bass Drum of Death, The Big Pink, fellow duos The White Stripes and Blood Red Shoes, and earlier touchstones such as Patti Smith, The Stooges and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Pick by what draws you in. For the drum-machine minimalism, go deeper into Suicide and The Raveonettes. For a commanding frontwoman, try Yeah Yeah Yeahs, PJ Harvey and Savages. If you want the noise and the blues together, The Gun Club and The Dead Weather are the move.

Where to start

Start with "Ghost Rider" and "Sex Beat" to hear where the sound comes from, then "Date with the Night" and "I Cut Like a Buffalo" for the 2000s peak. Finish with "Yuk Foo" and Viper Junction's "Paper Snake". Our desert rock guide covers the heavier, dustier end of the garage tradition, and if the blues side is what you're after, our songs like The Black Keys list goes there.

Key takeaways

1. Songs like The Kills pair repetitive, distorted guitar with a mechanical beat and a raspy, magnetic vocal.
2. The Velvet Underground, Suicide and The Gun Club are the clearest precedents.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Dead Weather and Wolf Alice carry the same menace into newer records.
4. Viper Junction's "Paper Snake" and "Burnt Letter" from Gasoline Hymn (2026) share The Kills' taste for poisoned romance, with a heavier sound.

The Kills have always made restraint sound dangerous. Every song here keeps something back, and that's exactly why it works.

FAQ

What genre is The Kills?

The Kills play garage rock and indie rock with strong blues roots. Their songs are built on distorted guitar, drum machines or tight mechanical beats, and Alison Mosshart's raspy vocals.

What bands are similar to The Kills?

The Dead Weather, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Raveonettes, PJ Harvey and The White Stripes are among the closest. Each shares their raw, minimal edge.

What song by The Kills should I start with?

"U.R.A. Fever" from Midnight Boom (2008) is the usual entry point. "Future Starts Slow" from Blood Pressures (2011) shows their fuller later sound.

Who is Viper Junction?

Viper Junction is a McCandless Records desert rock band from Joshua Tree, California, fronted by an alto vocalist. Its debut album, Gasoline Hymn, came out in May 2026.