I'd heard these two were supposed to sound like the Velvet Underground and the knowledge that they were a twosome also caught my interest as a fan of the white stripes. VV (Alison Mosshart) and Hotel (Jamie Hince) are however much darker sounding than Jack and Meg and bring an awesome blues inspired crunch to their songs concerned with punk staples such as love, drugs, hate and all the dark features of human behaviour to be found in between. This album in a must for those that love dirty/distorted guitar work that sounds moments from falling apart at the seams. Mosshart's vocals lend an engaging sultriness to most of the tracks with standouts being "Cat Claw", "Kissy Kissy" and "Hitched" - this is a very stylised sound which I happen to like but won't be for everyone - fans of the Velvet Underground should love this, fans of the White Striped might be a little surprised.
Mean Side rocks with swagger and metrognomic gall. Some bands talk directly to your paranoid-delusional side, bouncing their visions, opinions, and wit -on the subject of YOUR LIFE- around your heart and bedroom like a 1st division football team. Now, I'm not a soccer fan, but I do love their balls!
First time I bought the album from a second hand cd shop randomly. I didn't know the band at first but the covers seem very interesting so I tried it and loved it. Great band, electronic style one guitarist, female vocalist and a drum machine but IT ROCKS. Then cd was broken in half by accident so I havn't heard the album for nearly a year because I couldn't afford to buy a new one and it's very rare to find one again from second hand shop. I found a couple on ebay but it's been such a competition because it's quite rare until I found the one I bought, which I think I was very lucky because I bought it very cheap. I absolutely love it as I havn't heard it for ages and the quality was much better than the first one I bought. There's nothing I dislike about it. Recommended this band. Definetly.