Raveonettes are a Danish duo
(guitarist Sune Rose Wagner and bassist Sharin Foo) who had a simple idea:
play noise-rock of the 1990s with the attitude of the Sixties (with no live
drums and no guitar amplifiers).
The EP Whip It On (2002) was too serious for such a limited idea,
but well documented their fixation with
Jesus And Mary Chain and the
Velvet Underground.
but the album The Chain Gang of Love (2003) correctly focused on a
more playful tone that yielded easy refrains, no matter how derivative
(That Great Love Sound).
These kind of jokes are hard to repeat without getting boring, and
Pretty In Black (2005) proved it true also in this case, a much more
nostalgic and accessible work.
Having failed to establish themselves as pop stars, they wisely returned
to the noise-rock of their first EP on
Lust Lust Lust (Vice, 2008), containing better melodic rave-ups such as
Aly Walk With Me and You Want the Candy, drenched in
fuzz and distortion.
In And Out Of Control (Vice, 2009) was an even more straightforward
(but mostly faceless) power-pop album (Bang).
Ditto for the largely uneventful
Raven In The Grave (Vice, 2011), haunted by
distinctive echoes of the Brit-pop sound of the 1980s in songs such as
Ignite (but without the catchy hook of, say,
Modern English's Melt with You).
Observator (Vice, 2012) boasts at least
Young And Cold, that evokes the
sunny California sound of the 1960s (Mamas & Papas and the likes),
but mostly sinks with the
trite atmospheric pop of ballads such as The Enemy, despite the
dreamy overtones of Curse The Night.
