Albums of 2007: #2

The Raveonettes - "Lust, Lust, Lust"

The Raveonettes have two main sounds:

· a dark minor chord based sound that wouldn’t be out of place in spaghetti westerns or grind house b-movies … with Jesus & Mary Chain styleee heavy distortion, feedback and general noise

· a mix of 50s / 60s bubble gum pop and Glaswegian indie pop … with Jesus & Mary Chain styleee heavy distortion, feedback and general noise !!!

On previous albums (”Lust, Lust, Lust” being their fourth) they have tended to stick with one of these styles for the entire set, here they move between them and sometimes combine them to great effect.

Its clear that Surin and Sharin have found a couple of effects for their Fenders that they like and their damn well gonna use them as much as they can here. Opener “Aly, Walk With Me” is as dark as they come and appears to set the scene for a downbeat album. “Hallucinations” introduces the pop sound and the Mary Chain noise feedback and its clear this is going to be a style clash rollercoaster.

“Lust” is a classic example of how a simple drumbeat, simple chords and an effective lead guitar break can sound stunning, especially when accompanied by subtle harmonies and a haunting melody. This style is used on several of the tracks here and most notably on the beautiful “Black Satin” that follows the more upbeat “Dead Sound”.

The musical rollercoaster is most evident in the trio of tracks led by the noise pop fest that is "Blush" followed by the eternally dark but stunningly simple “Expelled From Love”. The trio is complete by the pop cheesefest that is “You Want The Candy”.

The upbeat “Blitzed” and “Sad Transmission” lead you to believe that Danes are going to keep the popfest going to the end and just when your head starts to bop along like an extra from “Grease”, the haunting “With My Eyes Closed” brings things back to earth.

Despite the upbeat pop tunes here, The Raveonettes are essentially a dark, minor chord outfit and fittingly, close the album with the sad and reflective “The Best Dies”, anything else would have missed the point.

Although the band, and this album, is a fusion of so many different influences, this is simple but beautifully structured stuff … its also an indie noise fest when the mood suits. Its not a mass appeal record, but those who are fans of the various influences will get it and understand why its so high in this list.