London-based garage-rock duo The Kills played a set this afternoon at The Fader Fort here in downtown Austin. After entering through a Levi's store / hipster fun house from an alternate universe, Mike and I found ourselves in the tented backyard venue. And once there, we caught Hotel (Jamie Hince) and VV (Alison Mosshart) up to their old tricks: making sexy, riff-driven, meth-freak garage-blues over stuttering drum-machine beats [how's that for hyphens, eh?!]. Playing mostly songs from their new XXXChange-produced album, Midnight Boom, which drops stateside next Tuesday on Domino Records, The Kills looked and sounded in top form. And a good thing it is, as they're about to embark on a month-long tour of continental Europe on Saturday.