Thoughts OnThe Raveonettes: Lust Lust Lust

When keeping an eye out for bands that are going to make a lasting impact, quantity can be as important as quantity. Take The Strokes and Interpol, for example. Both released lauded debut albums, yet when it came time to collect the b-sides for the singles from those records, there was one new track per band and a unwanted batch of 'exclusive live tracks'. Both bands went on to put out tired second records and awkward third ones.

The Raveonettes, on the other hand, were passed off by many (myself included) as just another gimmicky product of the "New Rock Revolution". Yet they never had trouble writing songs. Maybe that doesn't count for much on a band's first record, but on a band's fourth, it can make all the difference in the world. The band's first two albums, "Whip it On" and "Chain Gang of Love", were absolute gems. Based on a single key each (B flat minor and B flat major respectively), they displayed songwriter Sune Rose Wagner's ability to mix menace and tender beauty. The following record, "Pretty in Black", was admittedly a bit spotty, but it did produce what was probably the best track of 2005, "Love in a Trashcan". While the record was rightfully praised for demonstrating a broadening of the band's musical palette, it was hard not to see it as a mixture of enduring triumphs and spectacular failures.

Predictably, perhaps, after such an experience, "Lust Lust Lust" is the sound of a band going back to basics. Heavily distorted surf guitar and icy-cool two-part harmonies are front and center here, just as they were on those first two records. Second track "Hallucinations" sets the template: threadbare verse with drum machines and bass; noisy, feedback-laden chorus leading into chiming guitar riffs.

Needless to say, The Jesus and Mary Chain cast a long shadow here; this album might have been called "Teenage Lust Lust Lust". Opener "Ally Walk with Me" has the distorted trip-hop beats and Eastern overtones that Primal Scream, the band of original JAMC drummer Bobby Gillespie, has made a career of. It ends on a wave of feedback fit for a My Bloody Valentine record, whose figurehead Kevin Shields played with and produced Primal Scream. The effect of this influence incest could have been disastrous; fortunately for The Raveonettes, they've picked the right group of bands to emulate.

First single "Dead Sound" is vintage Raveonettes as the sparse verses fall away into a lullaby chorus--a fleeting moment of fragility that is shattered by a barage of reverb-drenched distortion. The appropriately named "Blitzed" is a shock of surf-rock energy with britpop trimmings. The disaffected duo sing "Our love is being blitzed" and one has to admire both the line and the off-handed way it is delivered. As the strains of closer "The Beat Dies" bring the album to a melancholy close, one can imagine Audrey Horne spacing out and dancing to the song playing on the jukebox of the Double R. Much like David Lynch and his musical cohort Angelo Badalamenti, The Raveonettes are fixated on a slightly sinister vision of 1950s America. As Lynch can attest, this sort of perverse nostalgia for the dark corners of an idealized age is fertile ground for artists. It's no wonder, then, that The Raveonettes revisit these themes with each new record.

If there's any downside to "Lust Lust Lust", and to the music of The Raveonettes on a whole, it's that there's a certain emotional coldness in the music, an artful distance maintained, that makes it hard to digest more than a couple songs at a time. In other words, this is the perfect music for our shuffle culture, but those looking for their new favorite band might be disappointed. That being said, their songs are probably the ones you'll find yourself drifting back to once this year's Interpol or The Strokes have lost their touch.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Listen to "Dead Sound":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]

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Amazon CD