A young boy raised on the high lonesome sound of Hank Williams and Bill Monroe witnessed the acid test glow of a 1960’s light show in the haunted ruins of an antebellum mansion—the seeds of The Living Kills were born.

For 10 years, while also playing in punk bands with members of the Dexeteens and Che Arthur, Merrill Sherman recorded four- tracks alone in an Alabama shack and later a Chicago basement. It wasn’t until he moved to New York, that he met the members that would become his band: organ/synth /vocalist Jennifer Bassett, bass player Brenden Beu, and drummer Yancy Sabenicio.

Together—Brenden, a San Diego music school graduate and songwriter/co-founder of fellow Brooklyn bands The Fearsome Sparrow and Rivers and Streams, Yancy, a New York music scene veteran, born in the Philippines, raised on the shores of Rockaway Beach, and Jennifer, a classical piano playing, former New York book editor—expanded Merrill’s original vision. Over the last year, the band has continued to evolve their sound, which evokes everything from the heavy rock of Black Sabbath, the psychedelic gothic of Love and Rockets, the screams of The Sonics, and the wistfulness of early R.E.M.

Their first 7-inch, You’ll Miss Me Most, (featuring Doktor Avalanche of Sisters of Mercy and tracked by Jim Bentley at The Fort) is a product of Merrill’s early recordings. The original starkness of one guitar and a voice drowned in reverb became the wintry, psychedelic landscape of “You’ll Miss Me Most” and the formerly finger-picked murder ballad, “Wires of Copper,” was cast anew with female vocals and electronic noises. And yet, as You’ll Miss Me Most attests, even as The Living Kills continue to shape and reshape their songs, the same intimacy of those original recordings remains very much intact.

_The Living Kills MySpace