The Kills are life of the party

The psychosexual menace that pours off the Kills instantly sets them apart from the expansive rock of the White Stripes, the stylized reserve of the Raveonettes or the psychedelic bombast of the Black Keys.

The London blues duo’s just-released debut album is called “Keep on Your Mean Side,” and during its short, nine-song set Thursday at Spaceland that’s exactly where they stayed, attacking their songs in the low-lit gloom with the abject fervor of the Jesus and Mary Chain while using repetitious hooks, drum loops and lyric lines to conjure a kind of industrial anxiety.

Guitarist Jamie Hince, who goes by the nickname Hotel, kicked off the programmed drum tracks that back each song and then pulled a sludgy, Blue Cheer blues roar out of his instrument. Waifish but voracious American singer Alison Mosshart, a.k.a. VV, hurled herself at the microphone with a mix of voices, at times an unsettling double for PJ Harvey and at others reduced to groans and heavy breathing. Much of the time they ended up singing to one another with the microphones inches apart.

In fact, that is where the duo lost some of its potential power. Despite massive volume and the ring of snarling truth, the performances remained turned inward, as though the audience were watching something private.

By the encore, which ended with Hotel and VV shuddering together in mock sexual frenzy, it was clear that connecting to the audience wasn’t as important as demonstrating their desperate connection to one another.