The tick-tick of Little Bastard itself is the first thing listeners hear on 'Superpowerless,' the Last Day of Magic B-side that distills Midnight Boom's neon collages of rock, hip-hop and electro pop. 'Passion Is Accurate,' from 2005's Run Home Slow EP, is an archetypal Kills song: Jagged riffs are juxtaposed with a low-slung electro rhythm, while Hince and Mosshart's unison vocals are casually commanding. The collection focuses on the especially prolific No Wow and Midnight Boom eras, reflecting how the Kills' horizons were expanding and what made them special in the first place. Named for the Roland 880 sequencer/drum machine that gave the duo's early work its signature throb, Little Bastards is an apt description of these stray songs that deserve more love. As the B-sides and rarities collection Little Bastards shows, Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart were barely keeping up with their muse during their first decade as the Kills. A good sign that a band is on a creative hot streak is the amount of music they release outside of their albums.
