Raveonettes

Not many bands aren't improved by sticking a six foot blonde in front and The Jesus and Mary Chain would benefit more than most. They may have reformed (one of this years biggest Indie surprises).... but they're still the same messy haired, shade wearing squabbling Reid brothers.

On the other hand there are The Raveonettes.

Danish duo Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner have taken the Jesus And Mary Chain template of fuzz guitar, feedback, mixed it with girl group melodies and added Suicide, Buddy Holly and surf guitar.

Usually all in the same song.

Add in a B move poster aesthetic (all good girls going bad and bad boys going worse) and a willingness to embrace the gimmick. A stand up drummer (not Bobby Gillespie). Add a dash more Mary Chain.

Ok the result may not be original and you can easily spot where they've got every one of their moves from (er would that be the Jesus and Mary Chain?), but it's still a bag of fun. And Sharin Foo doesn't look like either of the sulky Scottish Reid brothers. Result!

First album Whip It On is an 8 song dash through Garage Surf titles like Cops On Our Tail, Bowels Of The Beast and Beat City. The boast is that all the tracks are written in B flat minor and are no more than 3 minutes long. No more than 3 chords, no hi-hat and no cymbals. Whoever said Rock 'n' Roll was about no rules?

2003's follow up Chain Gang Of Love proudly screams from it's film poster style sleeve that this time it's written and recorded in B flat major. There is a difference. It's also produced by Richard Gottherer who produced the first Blondie records, co wrote My Boyfriend's Back by The Angels and co founded Sire. Put in those terms he pretty much built New York!

Chain Gang Of Love is an altogether shinier album. It plays with the idea of the innocence of 50's rock n roll and recognises that dumb lyrics are often the right lyrics. Sometimes a well placed "Yeah" can say more than 1000 other words.

In an interview on www.noripcord.com Foo describes their approach as "Both a homage and a little bit of satire. We're not totally romantically infatuated with American culture. On Chain Gang of Love in particular though, there's a real sentimental, nostalgic feeling in the lyrics and the music. There's a bunch of references to Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, and the kind of melodies from back then; good old-fashioned song-writing"

Lets Rave On has an impossibly fast racing pulse of a drum machine. It's just bass drum, but if it was an episode of Casualty, then trolleys would be crashing through doors and they'd be a lot of shouting.

The lyrics not only echo Buddy Holly, but are for those moments when you think you watch films at the drive in rather than from Blockbusters: "Lets rave on cos I know that you want to. Lets make out cos I know that you want to. Lets go down where the hearts are broken. Fix them all in time"

The Love Gang has a lyric about "Two delinquents in love". As a phrase it's pure 50's imagery. West Side Story and James Dean. Nostalgia for when it was Grease rather than Grecian 2000 and it was all fields and juvenile delinquents round here.

The band's lyrics are one of the pleasures. How about this gem from The Love Gang? "Chains black leather and sex. Yeah it's not that complex." Sounds like a quiet night in to me, but as a lyric it made me giggle a like a loon.

Of course the band think they're doing more than just providing me with giggly entertainment.

Foo told Noripcord that ""We kinda like the contradictions in the music. It's interesting for us to have the opposites - the really sweet, subtle, mellow vocals; poppy and a bit naïve - and then a fuzzy background that's very guitar and bass-driven and pretty intense.

"And to have a melody that sounds innocent, but with lyrics that are really decadent. It creates an interesting tension we think."

Little Animal has the opening line "My girl is a little animal. She always wants to fuck. I can't find the reason why, I guess it's just my luck." I'd keep quiet about that…everyone will want one! The opening chords are standard Mary Chain issue and there's a great fuzz bass sound.
The lyrics to the title track break one of the oldest rules of pop in an interesting way. All bands need to have a prison song and the cast iron law is that you are always a prisoner of your baby's love. The singer is always powerless and can never stop loving his baby.

That's the language of Pop. Sentences are served and rules are obeyed.

However on Chain gang of Love amidst all the "Huh" and "Yeahs" that echo round the song and root it to the original chain gang of Sam Cooke etc there is this lyric. "I'm just a prisoner of love. I'm serving time for something I can't do. They call it a crime, cos I'm not in love with you."

Could be Sune Wagner be the only man in Pop prison who doesn't love his baby?

Best track on the album though is The Great Love Sound. I don't want to harp on about The Mary Chain but it starts like You Trip Me Up and the (excellent) line "So I walk right up to you and you walk all over me" couldn't be more like JAMC if it was wearing shades and punching it's brother.

Love Can Destroy You is a White Stripes style country song. Woozy and disorientating like wind up jewellery box. The guitars overlap from each speaker and there's a regular chime that helps to keep the beat, which actually sounds like a squeaky hamster wheel.

By their 2005 album and Pretty In Pink they were able to call in favours from Ronnie Spector who sings on Ode To LA and there are also appearances from Suicide's Martin Rev and Mo Tucker from the Velvet Underground.

New album Lust Lust Lust is released this week on Fierce Panda. There are 3 d glasses to go with it and more importantly a terrific single, Dead Sound.

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The guitars alternate between twangy and buzzy. Sune and Sharin's voices are wrapped around each other and combined in languid loveliness. Unusually the chorus is actually the quietest part of the song of the song (Yes you can change the laws of physics!) and it's got the tense pulse and impossibly pretty keyboards of Cheree by Suicide.

So once again The Raveonettes have used easily traceable sources, but it sounds so good that it would be churlish to complain. So I won't.