There is something oddly inspiring about the music of The Raveonettes. It is enough to propel any rational human being to don a pair of sunglasses at midday, strap on a leather jacket and drive a Thunderbird straight off of a cliff while saddled up next to his or her high school sweetheart.
Cheery? Not quite. But at least it’s undeniably dramatic and cinematic.
On the band’s previous albums, The Raveonettes had explored the darker, sultrier trimmings to the jukebox hits of the ’50s and early ’60s. Dig a little into Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers or The Ronettes and you can find a treasure trove of carefully suppressed sexuality. While everyone around them got busy mining the latter half of the ’60s for inspiration, Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo stepped back a bit further, and unleashed the sensual undertones of their favorite 78s.
With Lust Lust Lust, the duo’s fourth album, Wagner has scaled back a bit on the Wall of Sound influence. The presence of Phil Spector’s beloved girl groups still lingers, but the reverb-heavy album channels something far murkier. Imagine The Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine on a serious nostalgia trip, and you are only about halfway there.
The album represents a serious maturing on Wagner’s part. On the previous Raveonettes’ release, Pretty In Black, the overall sonic palette felt more ambitious than Chain Gang of Love. Yet the sophomore album sacrificed some of the group’s rougher elements. Pretty In Black was a bit too pretty, slick around the edges and occasionally predictable. While enjoyable, the covers of “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Here Comes Mary” sound exactly as one would expect coming from The Raveonettes.
Though hardly a curveball, Lust Lust Lust has its fair share of surprises. The scrawling guitar noise on “Aly, Walk with Me” has only been hinted at on previous Raveonettes albums. Now, Wagner applies feedback liberally and in continuous layers.
And though noisier does not necessarily equal better (or artier, for that matter), the buzzing and screeching make for an appropriate foundation to Wagner’s pained expressions of love. The musical motif carries over from track to track, tying the songs together in an ocean of echoing guitars.
Surely, The Raveonettes deserve a pat on the back for devoting themselves to the set musical premise (Bleak, bleak, bleak!). Wagner and Foo have been known to stick to their guns and work within restrictions to great effect: They composed Chain Gang of Love entirely in the key of B-flat major. Lust Lust Lust never falls into gimmickry, but in light of The Magnetic Fields’ crowning Distortion, The Raveonettes’ album shows the band stretched a bit thin.
The cacophonous blend of foot-thumping riffs and ear-piercing feedback spices things up considerably, but Lust Lust Lust ultimately falls short of claustrophobic pop bliss. Only the brightest gems manage to shine through the fog.
Wagner cleverly tucks the harsher elements in “Sad Transmission” underneath a bouncy doo-wop beat and his partner’s lovely vocals. Foo’s voice, as always, permeates pure sex with a healthy dash of longing. “You Want the Candy” unwraps the somewhat-dated niceties of “I Want Candy,” which The Raveonettes play regularly, with a slight twist.
In the Raveonettes song, Wagner knows his lover wants the candy (Sex? Drugs?) and fleshes out the vague metaphor in a rapturous ode to the end of innocence. But blink for a second and you could completely miss the transition into “Blitzed,” the duller, almost identical following track.
More than once, Wagner and Foo piggyback on common beats and other shared elements from one song to another. Fragments of “Dead Sound” return two tracks later in “Blush.” By the time we hit “With My Eyes Closed” and “The Beat Dies,” Lust Lust Lust suffers a bit from several cases of déjà vu. The guitar parts begin to sound recycled, though amazingly, the album still maintains a great deal of its potency.
Only four albums and an EP into an expanding discography, The Raveonettes are still a great deal removed from whatever it is they are chasing down. But in tweaking and toying with what was already a pretty good thing, Wagner has moved a little closer to carving out the perfect musical niche.
Draped in black – perhaps even drowned in it – Lust Lust Lust is a mostly pleasing exploration of the musical point where gloom and jubilance briefly touch. Chock full of contradictions, alternately snappy and abrasive, the album makes for a nice addition to The Raveonettes’ canon.
zherrm@umd.edu
RATING: 3 STARS OUT OF 5
