Brighton's best...
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The Raveonettes...
review Working from a manifesto that ranges from the gimmickry of recording albums in a single musical tone (usually a variant of B flat), to producing songs no longer than three minutes with no more than three chords, and eschewing the use of high hats or cymbals, The Raveonettes initially give the impression that they were deliberately boxing themselves into a one-note corner.But the group manages to overcome these self-imposed constraints with apparent ease and makes for a more varied set than you might expect. Based around the irresistibly-named duo of Sune Rose Wagner and his striking, strident, six-foot bleached-blonde cohort Sharin Foo, but augmented tonight with three additional musicians, The Raveonettes tear through a set replete with imagery ripped virtually wholesale from the darker side of classic American pulp culture of the1950s. We’re talking ‘The Wild One’, ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ ‘Reefer Madness’: all black leather, delinquent teenagers and motorcycle gangs. Influenced by the harmonies of The Everly Brothers and the distinctive guitar twang of Buddy Holly, the dual vocals of Foo and Wagner on tracks such as ‘Remember’ and ‘Little Animal’ recall the sugary sweet tones of their versions of ‘Love Is Strange’, while the yearning and slightly masochistic edge of ‘That Great Love Sound’ evokes the bitter-sweet sound of the tragedies of the great girl groups of the Sixties: The Shangri-Las, The Ronettes, The Crystals. But this is no simple pastiche of a bygone era. The three guitarists at times abuse their instruments beyond what must surely be normal tolerances in order to crank out a wall of sound and feedback not seen since The Jesus and Mary Chain last walked these parts. This torrent of guitar fuzz and distortion serves as a counterpoint to the sweet, bubblegum-pop vocals and brings to mind similar techniques used by My Bloody Valentine to make beauty out of so much chaos. They debut a selection of tracks from their impending new album. These tracks don’t veer too far from the blueprint of what has gone before, and they fail to tell us what key they are in. But they sound just as short, sweet and great as what came before. The very title ‘Attack of the Ghost Riders’ reveals just how much of a debt they owe to 50s/synth genre blenders Suicide, as does the hypnotic drone of their lengthy final track; while the menace and aggression contained within the slow, loping bass-free ‘Bowels of the Beast’ is exactly the sort of thing that The Cramps were busying themselves with in the late 70s. But hey, while everyone’s busying themselves with the Gang of Four’s back catalogue, these leaders of the pack provide a welcome distraction from all that angular Art Rock.
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