MOG

I bought The Raveonettes’ newest album, Lust Lust Lust, today on iTunes. Two songs into the preview, and I was dedicated. This album is the whole reason I listen to music, and I felt compelled to share.

I always hesitate to write reviews because, while I so enjoy music, I’m not particularly well-versed in music terminology, and at times I feel ill-equipped to endorse anything. After all, there are only so many ways a person can say that something rocks before it gets old. With impulse buys like these, I’m responding to the music on a purely primal level. I think about Emily Dickinson when she said, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that it is poetry." It’s the same thing here. I always figure I can pick everything apart later, though I seldom do. I haven’t honestly dissected the lyrics to anything since I was a solitary teenager trying to unravel the words of Adam Duritz. I won’t attempt that here, either. This is all very touchy feely. If you don’t like it, stop reading immediately!

The retro styling of Lust Lust Lust takes me back a couple of decades. I know a lot of bands are exploring this type of sound, but The Raveonettes excel like few others. Don’t you love it when an album invites you to hear old sounds in a new way? This album was rockabilly. It was The Cure. It was the best new wave ‘80s. It was a little Twin Peaks. It was timeless. And it made me feel like I did on those long summer days when I was a kid. Playing ball, hanging out with the neighborhood kids, catching frogs with my brother, watching for fireflies, telling ghost stories, and looking at all those John Hughes films I couldn’t fully appreciate. But it’s not an innocent album. Obviously, it’s not about childhood. The title says as much. And yet that’s what I felt. That’s the underlying sound.

At the same time, the album propelled me into the future and made me face the immediacy of now. There’s an edge to the songs that makes it so much more contemporary than anything from one’s idyllic childhood. Maybe it’s the feedback. Maybe it’s the raunchy grittiness. This album makes me feel wonderfully young and old all at once. It’s the kind of album that can walk you through life. Good soundtrack music.

Lyrically, all the songs are about – you guessed it – lust, longing, love, misery, and a lot of leaving. The song “Hallucinations” closes with “Hallucinate / My love / Nothing’s real / In the morn / When I rise / I leave you to die…” It’s brutal, but the music is uplifting, even celebratory. In “Blush”, the chorus “I can’t keep you / I can’t hold you tight / I can’t lull you to sleep / Despite my hurtful ways / I can still make you blush” is defiant and upbeat. There’s no promise of tomorrow, no future with a true love. It’s now or never. It’s all very in-the-moment and sometimes a little bitter (“Your heartbeat stops / When I tell you / That lovers always part / A sad transmission / Brought to you by / Someone who doesn’t care” from “Sad Transmission”). Then you have a song like “You Want the Candy” – a playful, joyous romp through a meaningless fling: “An expired love treat / I gave myself to you / I wanted nothing back / I plowed my way through hell / For a sweet sweet love attack.” Simple and perfect.

The Raveonettes make despair sound fun. They’re kind of like the Arcade Fire in that way. The lyrics may be full of hurt, but the music transcends that melancholy and makes it something more than it was. If it’s messy and raw, it’s also beautiful and real.

I’ll definitely be listening to more from them in the future. Lust Lust Lust is easily my favorite album so far this year.