The Living Kills bring all the fun of garage psychedelia–instrumental freak-outs, creepy organ, 12-string guitar, light shows and lots of noise, but with a decidedly modern sensibility.
Unlike a lot of their peers, they aren’t trying to emulate the past, but instead recreate a vision of the 1960s that didn’t happen.
Today (November 14), they released a new EP, Odd Fellows Hall, that will usher in a full-length LP in early 2015. There's a new video for the single “It Ain’t Easy” on the way, as well as tour dates.
The brainchild of songwriter, vocalist and guitar player Merrill Sherman, a Brooklyn transplant from Chicago and Alabama, the band was originally conceived as a meld of Paisley Underground and Jesus & Mary Chain, but instead, anchored by Sherman’s storyteller lyrics and the addition of Jennifer Bassett on organ and Moog, approached something more akin to the darker trips of Roky Erickson or the Pretty Things.
They wear their love of creepy B-movies, horror and spooky thrillers on their collective sleeves, but chills generated are reversed by the dance-party music lovers cannot refuse.
Sherman and Bassett are joined by Ross Fisher on bass (the Brides, the Zodiac Killers), Western-hailed Heron Furtwangler on guitar (GoatRopers, Whiskey Dick Mountain, LEX LOSEr) and the Tri-State area’s very own Brian Del Guercio on drums.
For more about the Living Kills, visit thelivingkills.com.
