The Raveonettes – In And Out Of Control (Fierce Panda) 05/10/2009

The Danish rock and roll duo, Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner are back with their dreamy pop-infested tones and dark lyrical content in the shape of ”In and out of control”, their fourth album release in 8 years.

Swaying between sugary melodic songs, clearly influenced by the nostalgic-pop of the ‘60s, and dazzling dark mellow tones, their record is far from anonymous. Pulling off a retro pop-rock record without ending up as another generic and pompous mash up is a tricky task, but ”The Raveonettes” have solved the ”pop-formula” conundrum in their own peculiar way, and the record serves quality and originality throughout.

The Scottish alternative ‘80s and ‘90s rock band “The Jesus and Mary Chain” is still prowling around the seams, along with references from “The Everly Brothers”. Most noticeably ’’In and Out of Control” is a bit rougher and dirtier than their previous records, but they haven’t gone through a drastic reformation or identity crisis since the last album. The duo are still comfortably genre-bending garage-rock, rockabilly and dogma rock, whilst flirting minimalistically with cloudy shoegaze. And it all makes perfect sense on their 11 tracks spread on scarcely 37 minutes.

Telling melancholic tales with dusky content including rape, drugs and suicide, combined with their innocent and velvety textured voices, the contrasts are endearing. Singing “Boys who rape should be destroyed. Those fucker’s stay in your head” and “drugs are dangerous”, with a bittersweet naivety and light choir harmonies they manage to portray something dark without sounding solely depressive.

Fluctuating between darkness, cushy atmospherics and hearty guitar whirlwinds creates a light-weighted rummage of a record. And I’m almost sensing that the dark lyrical content is a description of the chaotic sides of today’s society, and a subtle warning to neurotic youngsters growing up in a blurry diffusion.

A bit of 90s classics can never go wrong.

My Tiger My Timing @ The Legion, London 15/10/2009

Playing for a rather small, yet dedicated crowd, The New Cross based quintet bounced off with a “quick and cheerful” performance, which paraded their electronic pop songs at the Old Street venue. Trekking all the way from Brooklyn, New York, indie-alternative rock support-act “The Ambassadors” and “The Vanguard”, played their shoes off with a likeable attitude and “newbie” charm, impossible not to be smitten of.
“The Legion” itself isn’t big enough to attract a massive crowd, which makes the dark bar comfortably intimate. With a relaxed crowd seemingly consisting mainly of acquaintances and friends of the support bands, the atmosphere was unpretentious and chilled.

With an exception of some front row female fashionistas heavily myspace pouting and recording themselves with a handy video-camera, while shouting “Facebook!”, there were alarmingly few East End hipsters in reach that night.

“My Tiger My Timing” may be labelled as a pop band, but it offers so much more than pure and bright pop. Imagine a sparse mix of gloomy post-punk collision with light hearted euphoria-tinted ‘80s synth-pop elements. Other songs hide mellow and fragile pop melodies under a layer of electronica and rough cascades of Caribbean and Plena-like rhythms. The music is never too obvious, not too intricate or difficult either. Delivering rhythmic indie-pop without being too flamboyant and predictable, the reference to last year’s math-rock hypes “Foals” and to popsters Hot Chip is inevitable.

Firing off with the Ladyhawkish “Ask your heart”, then continuing with their Andy Spence(New Young Pony Club) produced first released si$ngle “This is not Fire”, they were unleashing their songs at a remarkably high tempo throughout. Instead of whipping the crowd into frenzy with their minimalistically wrapped, electro fuelled pop songs they rushed through it all way too quickly. A full on start, no “pauses”, and, not more than 15 min later, they were off stage, before I even had time to absorb the performance or finish my cider. Oozing confidence, the sound and vocals were good, but their performance would have been a lot more charismatic if they looked less routined and had a more fiery energy on stage.

Half-hearted performance or not, they are one of the most exciting and original newcomers on the indie-pop scene at the moment, and with a brand new EP “I am the sound”, released exclusively through Pure Groove Records earlier this week they’re definitely worth keeping an eye on in 2010.