The Raveonettes “In And Out Of Control” Review
Honestly, there isn’t a band out there making music today that I find as scarily creepy and menacing as that of the Danish duo the Raveonettes. Sure, you could name any host of Scandinavian black metal bands out there, a handful of hardcore rappers, or even the Insane Clown Posse, but they wouldn’t give me the heebie-jeebies nearly as badly as the music of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo.
There’s a reason that I find thrillers like The Silence Of The Lambs and Zodiac vastly more frightening than over-the-top horror movies like the sort fashioned by Wes Craven or Rob Zombie. If you want to freak me out, don’t go for my senses—go for my psyche. This is what the Raveonettes do so well—sweetly cooing sentiments from ’50s and ’60s pop music are laced with extremely sour late ’80s fuzz, and then placed atop tales of romances that have been crushed to bits in the darkest possible ways. It’s as if the band watched Heathers and decided to write songs based on the movie’s themes without realizing it was an outrageous black comedy.
And on In And Out Of Control Wagner and Foo return with a record that’s less overtly gloomy than the band’s 2007 breakout Lust Lust Lust, yet more morose and macabre than ever. Just like Times New Viking did with this year’s Born Again Revisited, the Raveonettes have turned up the tone knobs on their guitars and pedal boards, creating a brighter mood than ever before. It’s a delicious twist that allows the lyrics to create an even darker atmosphere, as the band flirts with and blurs the line that separates a creepily intense lover and intensely creepy stalker like none other. And what makes the music of these two Danes so uncomfortable in my ears is that the vast majority of us have been this person, been subjected to such a person, or known someone first-hand who’s been tracked by this sort of Gollum-type character.
There are some scarily sexy vibes at play on this record, right down to this line in “Last Dance,” “Every time you overdose, I run to intensive care.” Rape, suicide, death, and overdose are all on the table with In And Out Of Control, but the band is never gratuitous or obnoxious in its description of these situations. “Gone Forever,” “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed),” “Heart Of Stone,” and “Breaking Into Cars” are filled with sentiments that are highly disquieting in their uncanny, unsettlingly accurate insight into the human condition. This is why I find the band so very appealing.
Snaking ’60s pop grooves within fuzzed-out garage rock and doo-wop vocals allows the Raveonettes to present stories of someone (or something) innocent becoming so very sinister (and often not by that person’s choice). The record does have a few weak spots, ones where the group falls in love with its own retro-chic pastiche a bit too readily (as heard on “Oh, I Buried You Today,” “D.R.U.G.S.,” and “Break Up Girls!”). Nevertheless, I find In And Out Of Control to be a fairly good record, especially if you like glistening pop hooks wrapped around tales of young love gone horribly and terribly awry.
[review by guest contributor Adam P. Newton]
Am absolutely loving this album – some fell in like with Lust Lust List – I was not one of those people, for whatever reason the majority of it didn’t click with me. Could listen to this all day long
I think the video is fun, despite the creepy birds.