Consider this: If there's a Duran Duran comeback in effect, how come one's wearing white suits and fedoras and making videos where they're sailing on a yacht to Sri Lanka? Kill Hannah aren't exactly going the white suit and yacht route, but they do wear fitted turtlenecks and carefully applied makeup, witch puts them perilously close to the ladn of LeBon. These boys take their fasion seriously, to the point that their merch table expands well behind the normal two or three t-shirts to include ties, arm warmers, and slinky hoodies. "What I loved about Duran Duran wasn't just their fashion, but their philosophy of fashion," says singer/guitarist Mat Devine. "it's absurd to say that it doesn't matter. Fashion can say everything about who you are and what you stand for. I think everyone, at some point in their life, will look at a picture of a band or an artist and think, 'Oh, they look cool,' and identify with what they do and who they are. So who are Kill Hannah? Judging by their look, they're a little bit wounded goth kid, a little bit flirtatious New Romantic, a little bit high-camp glam. Sesitive, savvy, droll, and never able to pass a window without checking their reflection. "I think, at the room, we are Midwestern and don't want to look pretentious. But at the same time,our heroes are European and flamboyant. So that's where we find ourselves," Devine says, "caught somewhere between." Kill Hannah's music, likewise, draws from both hometown and far-flung influences- you can hear dream Smashing Pumpkins guitar and industrial electronica informed by fello Chicagoans Filter and Stabbing Westward mixed in with the fey Euroglam of Placebo and spacy melodicism of early Duran Duran. Their major-label debut, Kill Hannah, finds the band (which includes guiatarists Jonathan Radtke and Dan Wiese, bassist Greg Corner, and drummer Garrett Hammond) sounding confident and radio-ready, having already put out tull full-length albums and three EPs- all of which now command big bucks on eBAy-on their own. Sometimes the band's romanticizing takes on a lustful urgency("Ten More Minutes"); at other times it makes an unexpected turn, as on first single "Kennedy," which finds Devine longing to be a part of the famous family's crumbling legacy. But Kill Hannah specialize in pity-party pleasure, the likes of which we haven't seen since Morrissey signed and proclaimed he never gets what he wants. It all comes to a head in the form of "Unwanted," a thick slice of hook-laden pop poised to be an anthem for the black-clad kids at once proud and pained to call themselves outsides. "I dedicate this song to teh boys who don't belong/To thegirls who get it wrong." Devine sings. "Hang on/Don't do what they say to do." "That one immediately caught on with our audience," Radtke says. "Everyone sings along with at shows." Who did the singer have in mind while writing the lyrics? "Myself as a 15-year-old." It's about time for a gloom-rock revival. After all, it's been a long while since the dark specter of Al Jourgenson ruled over the band's hometown music scene, having long since been replaced by indie rockers in ironic tees and thrift-store cords. Both Define and Radtke agree that Chicago's insular scene can be rather snotty if you don't follow the indie-rock textbook. "I wouldn't say that we were a reaction to that. We just don't relate to it, that's all," Radtke says. "And People were a bit antagonistic toward us because of it." "A lot of people made the time to actively hate us," Define adds. "And now they're listening to Peaches and Fischerspooner. We were hated for doing electronic stuff five years ago." Remember, even Smashing Pumpkins were once Chicago outcasts. "And now look them: They're on of the only bands of the '90s who are still relevant, to the point that everyone lists them as an influence," the singer says. "That's not a band role model for us to follow."
