''Midnight Boom'' is the third

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

The Kills The Kills are an English-American rock duo formed by American singer Alison "VV" Mosshart and English guitarist Jamie "Hotel" Hince. They are signed to Domino Records. Their first four albums, '' Keep On Your Mean Side'', ''No Wow'', ''Midni ...

, released on March 10, 2008, through Domino Records (March 17, 2008, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

). It was recorded at the

Key Club Recording Company Key Club Recording is a recording facility founded in Benton Harbor, Michigan by musicians and recording engineers Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins in 2002. The studio has been host to such bands as The Kills, The Fiery Furnaces and others. In Jan ...

Benton Harbor, Michigan Benton Harbor is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is 46 miles southwest of Kalamazoo and 71 miles southwest of Grand Rapids. According to the 2020 census, its population was 9,103. It is the smaller, by population, of ...

. The title refers to the hours from midnight to 6 a.m., in which the band was at the creative peak, writing material for the album.

Promotion

"U.R.A. Fever" was released as the lead single from the album on December 3, 2007. The second single, "Cheap and Cheerful", was released on February 25, 2008. "Last Day of Magic" was released as the third single on June 15, 2008 Two final singles from the album were " Tape Song", released on November 16, 2008, and " Black Balloon", released on March 22, 2009. Both songs have charted in France. "Sour Cherry" was featured on an episode of the TV series ''

Gossip Girl ''Gossip Girl'' is an American teen drama television series based on the novel series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series, developed for television by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, ran on The CW network for six sea ...

'', and became popular. "Sour Cherry" was also featured in ''

The House Bunny ''The House Bunny'' is a 2008 American comedy film directed by Fred Wolf, written by Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, and starring Anna Faris, Colin Hanks, and Emma Stone. It tells the story of a former Playboy bunny who signs up to be t ...

''. "What New York Used to Be" was used in the film ''Push''.

Commercial performance

''Midnight Boom'' was the band's first album that charted on the ''Billboard'' 200 in the U.S., peaking at number 133. It has also charted at number 16 on the

Independent Albums The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by '' Billboard'' maga ...

, number 9 on Top Tastemaker Albums, and topped the

Top Heatseekers Albums Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart. In Europe, it reached number 47 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, and has also charted in Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 2009. It was awarded a silver certification from the

Independent Music Companies Association The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...

which indicated sales of at least 30,000 copies throughout Europe.

Critical reception

The album received positive reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 75, based on 31 reviews.

Track listing

Personnel

;The Kills *

Alison Mosshart Alison Nicole Mosshart (born November 23, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter, artist, and the lead vocalist for the rock bands The Kills and The Dead Weather. She started her musical career in 1995 with the Florida punk rock band Discoun ...

– vocals, guitar, production *

Jamie Hince James William Hince is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as the guitarist for the indie rock duo The Kills. He started his musical career in the bands Fiji, Scarfo, and Blyth Power. He co-founded The Kills with American sing ...

– vocals, guitar, drums, percussion, production ;Technical personnel *

Tom Elmhirst Tom Elmhirst (born 8 June 1971) is a British mix engineer. He has worked with artists including Adele, Beck, David Bowie, Cage the Elephant, Lady Gaga, Residente, and Amy Winehouse, among many others. Elmhirst has received numerous accolades a ...

– audio engineering, mixing *

Jason Lader Jason Lader is an American record producer, audio engineer, and mixer from New York. He is also known for playing bass guitar, keyboards, piano, guitar, and as a programmer. He was a member of the band Furslide, and has since worked with Howard B ...

– engineering * Jessica Ruffins – engineering * Bill Skibbe – engineering *Andy Taub – engineering

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2008 albums Albums produced by Jamie Hince Albums produced by XXXChange Domino Recording Company albums The Kills albums