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The Kills 2012 Tour Dates, Paris Concert Film Announced

It’s been a few months since we checked in with The Kills, but Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince have been keeping quite busy on the road in the meantime. Now the duo have revealed even more big plans for promoting their excellent new LP, Blood Pressures, in the new year. The most exciting news for those who missed out on their 2011 Stateside gigs is that the pair are ready for yet another U.S. tour. Kicking off in late January in Chicago and extending through the middle of February in New York City, the Kills will embark on the 15-date winter jaunt listed below.

If you can’t make it to one of those dates, however, there happens to be a nice consolation price awaiting you for 2012: a full-length concert film consisting of footage from their November show at L’Olympia in Paris, France. Details on when the live flick will arrive are to-be-announced, but for now we have an enticing little teaser clip from the forthcoming release. Both the video and tour itinerary are after the jump.

Tool Recording Fifth Album

It’s been a half-decade since Tool released their last LP, 10,000 Days, which — given their 5-year pace between albums since 1996 — puts them right on schedule for a follow-up. Now confirmation that their next batch of fresh material is in the works has come via an official newsletter, as well as a few juicy details about sessions that have gone down so far.

Most notable, perhaps, is that producer and 10k Days engineer Joe Barresi is working with the band at a home studio. In addition to his previous work with Tool, Barresi has produced a number of popular rock bands, including Coheed & Cambria, L7, the Melvins, Wolfmother and — former Tool tourmates — Isis.

As fans of both vintage gear and analog recording around here, one equipment-related side note caught our eye: “song after song — in all their musical complexity — were being captured on tape (Yes, tape! For this record, a Studer A827 ‘Gold Edition’ analog tape recorder had been trucked in.” What’s more, reverb for the session (on at least the guitars) was created with an old Echoplex unit. For a great taste of the tones on that machine, by the way, you can hear it in all its glory on Bruce Springsteen’s 1980s 4-track cassette LP, Nebraska — particularly on the song “State Trooper.”

Aside from these details and the photo of a console above, more concrete info is not yet available. Suffice it to say, though: Tool’s fifth full-length record is imminent for 2012.

The Killers, ‘Cowboys’ Christmas Ball’ Video

The Killers have shared their fifth holiday one-off single in as many years in the form of “Cowboys’ Christmas Ball,” complete with an official video for the old west-themed cut starring the band themselves. As with previous installments of Brandon Flowers and the boys’ Christmas tunes, they’ve sidled up with the AIDS charity organization RED to make the event benefit a good cause.

Watch below as director Robert Schober accompanies the song via a spaghetti western-looking set that is full of surprises, from robots and aliens to an old-timey staple: bandits.

And now that you’ve met their new festive ditty, revisit all four previous cuts — “Happy Birthday Guadalupe!”, “A Great Big Sled”, “Don’t Shoot Me Santa”, and the Elton John-featuring “Joseph, Better You Than Me” — thataway.