Kills ASH & ICE

The Kills experienced -- or should that be survived? -- an eventful five years between 2011's Blood Pressures and Ash & Ice. Alison Mosshart moved to Nashville and worked with the Dead Weather as well as on her career as a visual artist, while Jamie Hince split with wife Kate Moss and suffered an injury to his left hand that required him to learn how to play guitar again. The process of recovering from a broken hand and a broken heart is apparent on the duo's fifth album, the title of which suggests the remnants of a night out -- or a nuclear winter -- and also reflects the trip Hince took on the Trans-Siberian Express in the wake of these events. The results capture the isolation and exhaustion that follow a breakup with remarkable honesty. Instead of melodrama, Mosshart and Hince explore weariness and loss via the sounds that seemed so vibrant on their previous albums. Despite its claws-bared riffs, there's a pall on "Doing It to Death" that announces Ash & Ice is more pensiv