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FOR NEVER & EVER
(Atlantic)
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Chicago alterna-poppers Kill Hannah are the tits — no wait, that’s just what adorns For Never & Ever’s sexy album cover. But there’s more where that came from on "Kennedy," the trashy first single from this debut CD. "I wanna kiss the girls of centerfolds on the tongue/And die young," sings frontman Mat Devine, who looks like an even fruitier version of AFI’s Davey Havok. Some chick moans her approval in the background, and the band raise an electro-grunge ruckus worthy of the song’s dark romanticism. Devine’s primary collaborator on "Kennedy" is Marilyn Manson producer Sean Beavan, a man who knows a thing or two about sexually charged modern rock. On "Boys & Girls," Devine sings his way around the kind of technofied groove used by Good Charlotte for "Girls & Boys." And glittery new wave isn’t the band’s only trick — they let it simmer on "New Heart for Xmas" and "Raining All the Time," a pair of tender goth ballads like the ones fellow Midwesterners Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage used to do so well. If radio still has a place for this brand of hard-edged androgyny, Kill Hannah could easily have a hit on their hands.
