Not so long ago I lamented the Magnetic Fields' utter failure to channel the Jesus and Mary Chain despite trying their hardest on "Distortion." Now here come the Raveonettes with their own attempt, and it's much more successful. Loud, distorted, reverberating, and alternately sultry and sunny. The key is to add the element of danger, something the MF are far too wry to manage.

"Aly Walk With Me," the lead-off single, gets about as close to "Sugar Ray" as needs to be gotten, with a devastating backbeat and purring vocals that pretty much guarantee the listener will walk with her, whatever their name is and whichever damn city she happens to be in. Fuzzed guitar bursts in periodically to deliver jagged chunks of bottle glass, apparently played on strings made out of power cables.

But it needs to be pointed out, amid all the reviews about this album resurrecting J&MC, or even My Bloody Valentine, that this is not a return to shoegaze. Listen to Film School, or Methodrone, for that sort of swirling, only vaguely melodic feedback haze. This is sweet sixties pop put together, bubblegum melodies intact, by frustrated dentists and those people who run the emergency broadcast network. It works about half the time.

Sune Rose Wagner's much-admired minimalist guitar approach is just right in its blistered intensity, song by song. But it can be hard to distinguish one song from the next when you try to make it through 10 or 15 in a row. It doesn't help that they decided to use nearly identical bass and drums on all the songs. They're all drowned in oceans of reverb - something I thought I could never get enough after Galaxie 500. But here it's like the drums are coated in snot.

Bottom line: Play the first half of this album. Loud. Then listen to the second half of Honey's Dead.

• Permalink
• | Write Comment

Comments

brittanybf says:

i have heard approximately the first half of this album. i don't own any other albums so i thought it was just me being new to their sound, but i also couldn't much differentiate between the songs on the beginning of the album. regardless, i'm sticking around for them cuz i think it's worth it.

Posted 4 months ago | Delete

aphriza says:

i agree - i can quibble in my posts, but the music is still pretty dang fun to listen to. And the first half of the album has more energy than the second, where they bring the tempo down with songs like "expelled from love" and "the beat dies." They've definitely banged out their own sound - it's not slavish devotion to their forerunners, and I'm curious to hear where they go next. Till then, this works fine. Thanks for chiming in...

Posted 4 months ago | Delete

brittanybf says:

I'm going to try to give that second half of the album a listen today.

Posted 4 months ago | Delete

I was in New Zealand and bought a disc I'd never heard of by a guy I'd never heard of. I do that sometimes. It was Erol Alkan, an English DJ who had put together a double-disc "Bugged Out" selection. His explanation: he mixed one disc to be a lose-your-mind dance-floor session, the other full of eclectic favorites to listen to after you get home. Turned out the lose-your-mind disc was mind numbing re-hash of every ecstasy mix cliche you can imagine. Cheeky samples and overdubbed buzzes that sound like annoyed bees. I threw the disc away after one listen.

So imagine my surprise at the second disc, where Alkan hits his stride picking weird, cool music marked by soul, imagination and reverb - occasionally diluted with elements of disco or flower power. He uncovers two tasteful, affecting covers, both sung by women: the Stones's 'Miss You'; and Ride's 'Vapour Trail', a still-burning ember from the heart of the shoegazer movement. Trespassers William strip it down to a strung-out voice and a melancholy guitar line and it's perfect. Listen to it and then go back and listen to the original. It makes it better.

He closes the disc with ten minutes of Spacemen 3: Let the good times roll, indeed.

• Permalink
• | Write Comment

Comments

brittanybf says:

the 2 disc idea sounded like a good one, too bad. i can see how it could be as cliche as you say though. well at least disc 2 had some good to offer. that's not bad considering you just bought it on a whim!

Posted 5 months ago | Delete