The Raveonettes Issue #35

Lust Lust Lust (Vice)

By Christopher Morgan
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 12:32pm

My understanding as to why the Raveonettes were getting lumped into the whole “garage” rock fad, is, I’ll admit, a partial one. I got their name, their retro chic, and their dirtier chords. But beyond that, it’s all marketing haze to me. The Raveonettes seemed to strive for something far greater than stripped-down rock revisionism. They were an aesthetic experience, more so than the White Stripes and the Strokes. If their videos and cover art were any indication, the Raveonettes had a sound that was best filling scenes of bleak ambiguousness with deviant sexual longing. Combining that and their dalliances with New York art noise and the chilled structure of post-punk, and there was something that had more to offer than just sweet riffs.

Rather than fill our heads with this aesthetic experience, the Raveonettes have taken it upon themselves, for whatever reason, to par that down. Gone are the pulp noir fetishism, and, for the most part, the fast, poppy tempos. Rather, most of Lust Lust Lust’s numbers are paced at the speed of the heartbeat of a sleeping body. While I'm loathe to bring up any direct comparisons, I can't help but point out the obvious leanings toward Jesus and Mary Chain–style shoegaze. The guitars are pretty, but sparse. Sharin Foo's vocals are more low-key and wistful, not unlike Jim Reid, or better yet, an adolescent Nico, with more training, of course.

The experience isn't all glum, though. Many of the songs, despite their derivativeness, are lush with beauty. Rather than some pulp crime scene, songs like "Hallucinations," "Black Satin," and "Sad Transmissions" conjure up the image of a Lynchian Sadie Hawkins dance, with cute teens awash in ennui and underpinnings of deviant drama. Songs in the latter half of the album pick it up a bit, returning to their roots in surf rock and various other sonic artifacts of American guitar history — "Dead Sound" being, oddly enough, the liveliest track. And there are — especially in opener "Aly, Walk With Me" — some wonderful explosions of noise.

Change in a band’s direction can be a wonderful thing. While Lust Lust Lust is somewhat of a back-to-basics for the Raveonettes, they also seem to be at their most liberated, which would be great if it were built upon hereafter with some more mix and match to go with it.