sons and daughters, this gift

This, Sons and Daughters’ second album following EP Love the Cup and first full album The Repulsion Box, was a slow burner in this house. We bought this early last year, when we were buying a whole lot more music than now. The two of us together in a music store were pretty much unstoppable: “Which should I buy? X or Y?” “Aw, but I wanted to buy Z.” “You buy Z, then.” “No, you buy X or Y.” “How about we buy both Z and X or Y?” “Okay, which one?” “Well, we’re already getting two albums, let’s get three.” “Should we? Oh, okay. And hey, did you see W over here?” etc. etc.

We became big fans of Sons and Daughters after seeing a video for their song “Johnny Cash” on Rage late one Saturday years ago. They were played virtually to death, such fans we were of the way their Scottish accents made the songs somehow better. Some of the songs were gritty, they were all fantastic up loud, felt a bit dark and gloomy yet fun. Altogether a rollicking good time was had on our thousands of car trips whilst playing their albums, paying special attention to songs like “Rama Lama”, “Taste the Last Girl” and “Dance Me In”.

This Gift was purchased a year ago, listened to about once, then lost in the pile of other albums we bought that day and dismissed as too different by Chris (and not really paid attention to by me, who was probably distracted by something shiny in a corner.) Then, this weekend, while heading to the city for a date with dumplings and crepes, Chris said, “Oh, let’s give this another go in the car, huh?”

And hey ho, I adored it. I’ve listened to the other albums so often I thought I’d probably be a bit disinterested in more of the same type of thickly sung tunes, but instead this feels a bit more upbeat, more rockabilly, and with more hooks that put me in an unexpectedly fantastic mood for the car trip, especially as we found parking pretty much straight away and for free. But I digress.

“Darling” is my favourite track, being listened on repeat by me at the moment, a peppy track that is very danceable, should I ever actually dance (insert hysterical laughter here.) I think there’s something I really enjoy when lines like “twisting in twisting out the knife” are sung in a way that has you picturing the vocalist dressed in a happy blue dress skipping about the place. “Iodine” has another lovely guitar line, a bit slower and perhaps a bit suited to walking quietly home together after, well, I was going to say a movie, but with a name like “Iodine” possibly home from poisoning someone. Perhaps instead I should just stop spamming you with my mental imagery. Ahem.

The album is not so different from the others, after listening to it more. Female vocalist Adele Bethel has more airtime than the usual 50/50 split between her and Scott Paterson, which perhaps changes the tone, but not a lot. The rockin’ “House in my Head” is a fast-paced, car-drivin’ type of track more in tune with their relentless other albums. The first track, “Gilt Complex”, is also similar, in that occasionally during the chorus you can feel like you’re being shouted at. “Split Lips” is lovely but makes me feel sad. The rest are all consistently great, but I’ll spare you my emotional rollercoaster rides, it’s enough that I have to hear myself think them.

At the risk of sounding shallow, I also find them an aesthetically pleasing band:

I will smooch ALL of them.

We are trying to save money at the moment, so finding these little neglected gems in our cd collection is keeping me going during this time of music-buying abstinence. It’s possible that I’m rose-coloured about it because it feels like our first new cd in years. It’s probably about nine or ten days, in reality, but the last one was not counted because of many reasons, i.e. “It’s on sale!”; “But we HAVE to own this one because we have this all of this band’s others”; “It’s the Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack, come on”, etc. etc.

the raveonettes, in and out of control

At the last Raveonettes show at the HiFi Bar, I passed out. I can only assume, as I don’t drink or take drugs, that their frightening amount of cool overwhelmed me and I came over all faint. I’m still not sure. I regained consciousness after a few seconds and demanded of a worried Chris that we had to stay until they’d played one of my favourite tracks from previous album Lust Lust Lust—“Aly, Walk With Me”. This swoon-inducing band is made up of Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner, who hail from Denmark but now live in the US. The two of them sing, play guitar, have a drum machine and enjoy a bit of feedback.

The Raveonettes, mostly, aren’t an overly complicated band. They sing about dancing and love and summer and heartbreak. They did a brilliant rendition of “My Boyfriend’s Back” on their 2005 album Pretty in Black. They are a rock band in the pure sense—they write great songs and you love them, want to dance to them and sing them really loud in a convertible Cadillac along Palm Beach. Track one from In and Out of Control, the impossibly cheery “Bang”, declares that “kids wanna bop/out in the street/fu-fu-fun/all summer long”. It’s a hard sentiment not to agree with. I’d like to have fun all summer long too, though it’s a shame it can’t extend to other seasons.

Personally, I find them to be the perfect band to listen to when you’re driving along at night. Somewhere between The Beach Boys, hipster rock and rockabilly, I feel a bit cooler just by listening to them. I’ll suggest their style is surfabilly, but keep in mind that I’m a bookseller who likes music and I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Not all their songs are sunny—or at least as sunny as the music itself sounds. A good example up until now would have been the essentially happy but initially sad tale “Love in a Trash Can”, another song from Pretty in Black and which I listened to on heavy repeat. Now, their harder tracks are best explained through track four of this new album. The first time I heard the song, in the car on the way home from work, me and Chris both started at the chorus and looked at each other, whispering, “What...what did she just say there?” The song, I learned after groping through my bag for the cover, is called “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)”. It’s a small song. “3 to 1 girl/how can you win/one horrid night/you hope that it’s a bad dream/they rip you to shreds/make you feel useless/you’ll never forget/those fuckers stay in your head.” The upbeat feel of the song really throws you for a loop, and to be honest it’s probably the catchiest song on the album, too. The chorus has an echo, which makes it even more compelling to sing with a friend, though you’ll undoubtedly feel a bit awkward doing so in a shopping centre when you remember what you’re actually singing.

There’s not a Raveonettes song out there that I don’t like. Their guitar licks are catchy and vibrant, Sharin Foo is cute as hell, and their tunes will probably make you want to dance with a tall, skinny guy with a quiff and Cuban heels. Don’t resist it. I certainly can’t.