With this Swedish boy/girl combo so in thrall to 60′s pop – their best-known number ‘Ode to LA’ featured Ronnie Spector – it was only a matter of time before they added a Mary Chainish layer of distortion and feedback and went monochrome. On ‘Lust Lust Lust’ that’s exactly what they have done, but luckily, their knack for a tune has seen them avoid them going completely down the copyists route.
Not that they haven’t tried to give any detractors ammunition to fire on that charge. There is a song on here called ‘You Want The Candy’ for Christ sakes. Short of calling a song ‘We’re From East Kilbride And Like The Velvet Underground’ you couldn’t come up with a title more synonymous with the Reid brothers. I’m at a loss whether to be offended by how cheeky that is or simply marvel at their chutzpah.
So banging echoing drums abound, guitars are fuzzed and basslines sound like they were taken from The Ramones. Add to that the insouciant cool of main singer Sharin Foo’s disembodied vocals and you have a package which will appeal to a lot of boys who loved Creation Records with a religious fervour. The guitar playing on some songs is strangely reminiscent of the Cure, lots of spiralling bright riffs spreading across the songs and lifting this album from mere pastiche to something better. Highlights include ‘Aly Walk With Me’, the single ‘Dead Sound’ and the moody ‘With My Eyes Closed’. It’s probably best not to dwell on the lyrics, which are pretty much standard love and drugs and leather jackets schtick. Never once do they sound believable. If the Velvet Underground were reporting, the Raveonettes are creative writing.
But where do they go from here? Hard to say. The Raveonettes always sound like they are paying tribute to the music they love rather than doing anything new. While it’s this good it’ll suffice, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that the Raveonettes will never be more than a footnote in scuzz rock’s history.
Filed under: Album Review, New Albums Tagged: | Jesus and Mary Chain, Lust Lust Lust, Raveonettes, Velvet Underground
