Raveonettes Lust Lust Lust CD

The Raveonettes: Sune Rose Wagner, Sharin Foo.
The fourth album from the Raveonettes shows a return to form for the Danish duo. While 2005's PRETTY IN BLACK had a smoother, poppier vibe, LUST LUST LUST steeps the band's catchy, close-harmony tunes in clouds of guitar fuzz, gloomy atmospherics, and ample doses of artful noise and static.
As on the Raveonettes previous albums, the influences of '60s girl groups, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Buddy Holly, the Velvet Underground, and the Everly Brothers can be heard, but the sonic dressing is what makes the package so delectable. Tunes like the amped-up pop-rocker "You Want the Candy" or the chiming singalong "Dead Sound" hit like a confection laced with something diabolical, or a ride through the haunted house with your sweetheart, making LUST LUST LUST both enticing and thrilling.
The Raveonettes third album Lust Lust Lust is the sound of a band rescuing their career from the clutches of cliché and rediscovering the magic that made them so exciting on their debut Chain Gang of Love. The opening track "Aly, Walk with Me" serves notice that things are going to be a lot different, the menacing prowl of the verses giving way to a deafening burst of white light/white heat noise halfway through the song. Anyone fearing that Lust Lust Lust would be another record lost to over-production and slickness should, once they regain their hearing, be ecstatic. The duo recapture the fire, mystery, and dirty glamour of their early records and add a sharper melodic sense on a batch of songs that will stick to you like a sharp knife between the ribs. Tracks like the thrillingly bleak yet devastatingly pretty "Dead Sound," the swaying "The Beat Dies," and the classically melodic "Black Satin" are as good as anything the band has done to date (and frankly, compare quite ably to the work of their most obvious influence, the Jesus and Mary Chain). Sune Rose Wagner took over the production task from Richard Gottherer and stripped away all remnants of the glossy hack job they did on Pretty in Black. Throughout the record, the reverb is so heavy it might make you woozy, the drums clatter like trash can lids, and the vocals struggle to make it through the layers of haze but Wagner's light touch and newfound sense of restraint means the arrangements sound fully realized and if not three-dimensional, a very strong two. Sharin Foo's vocals sounds as glacial and, as ever, Wagner's guitar melodies are note perfect (check his work on "Blitzed" for a short lesson on how to do a lot with only a few notes) and the two of them appear as reassuringly unwholesome as ever. Happy about it even, as they sing of being tied to evil hearts, black lollipops, and death by deceit in their sweet and unconcerned voices. Lust Lust Lust should have been the follow up to Chain Gang of Love; Pretty in Black can just be considered a mistake, and fans of the fuzzy, decadent and over-driven version of the Raveonettes can be happy that they have their band back; nastier, prettier and better than ever. ~ Tim SendraRolling Stone (p.68) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Wagner manicures the noise with a light, hip touch....You always get beauty and beastly in equal measure -- but never the same way twice."
Spin (p.101) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] funny and surprisingly touching mission statement, a dirty-sweet testament to rock'n'roll's enduring ability to reflect desire in all its forms."
Entertainment Weekly (p.94) - "LUST is a gauze-wrapped cocoon of an album: too opaque to break through to a wide audience, but all the more precious for its enigmatic, slow-to-surface charms." -- Grade: A-
Alternative Press (p.145) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[They] are suddenly noisier than old-school Sonic Youth and every bit as menacing as the Velvet Underground circa '68."
Paste (magazine) (p.72) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "'Hallucinations sums up the entirety of The Raveonettes' value proposition: the notion that there is beauty in simplicity, depth in density."