| Kill Tunes | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Leaving Trains |
| Cover: | Kill Tunes.jpg |
| Released: | 1986 |
| Genre: | Indie rock |
| Label: | SST[1] |
| Prev Title: | Well Down Blue Highway |
| Prev Year: | 1984 |
| Next Title: | Fuck |
| Next Year: | 1987 |
Kill Tunes is the second album by the American indie rock band Leaving Trains.[2] [3] It was released in 1986 via SST Records. The band supported the album with a North American tour.[4]
"Private Affair" is a cover of a song by the Saints. Kill Tunes is the last album on which the Hofer brothers played.[2] "10 Generations" addresses themes of authenticity and selling out.
Trouser Press wrote that frontman Falling James Moreland "displays his boozehound-next-door humor for the first time on “A Drunker Version of You,” and it provides a welcome respite from the vitriol sprayed elsewhere."[5] The Los Angeles Times thought that "it's one narrow line between convoluted and eclectic, and Leaving Trains walks it, bends it and ties it into knots."[6] The Reno Gazette-Journal determined that "the guitar attack is reminiscent of the Clash in their heyday."
Robert Palmer, in The New York Times, declared: "The album title is apt; Mr. Moreland writes the songs, then the band assaults them with well-placed jabs, hard riffing, chaotically celebratory vocals and sheer energy"; Palmer later listed Kill Tunes as the third best album of 1986.[7] [8] The Providence Journal opined that "Kill Tunes does smack of revival, but not of stale rehash."[9]
AllMusic wrote that "the album mixes soft ballads, high-octane rave-ups, and furious rock played with endearing jangle, roaring bar chords, and catchy pop hooks." Spin listed the album as one of the 80 "excellent" underground rock albums of the 1980s.[10]