Saturday, March 22, 2008

listen up

The indie kids are still sleeping off their South by Southwest hangovers, so Style.com is stepping into the breach this week to give you your download marching orders. Two dynamic duos release new albums today: She and Him, the kismet pairing of actress Zooey Deschanel and folkie troubador M. Ward, and him and her, a.k.a. the Kills, a.k.a. Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart. "Volume One" by She and Him is 100 percent Pitchfork-approved indie stuff—winsome, vintage-y, lightly country-fried songcraft that Deschanel and Ward pull off with catchy and melodically original aplomb. Music geeks have been rooting for Ward since, well, basically always, and fashion folk who caught Deschanel's set at the Erin Fetherston show last year found out that this is one ingenue with the chops to quit her day job, if she wanted to; together, they're a match made in heaven. Courtesy of a certain Miss Moss, meanwhile, the Kills have all the fashion following they'll ever need, and Hince and Mosshart are courting the new fan base on "Midnight Boom" by finally stepping out of the long shadow of the Royal Trux and indulging their taste for beat-driven pop. The bluesy stomp of previous Kills records has been traded in for a fresher industrial crunch, notably on the clubby "Cheap and Cheerful" and the sexy, no-holds opener "U.R.A. Fever."

—Maya Singer