Friday 29 July 2011

She Wants Revenge

Who: She Wants Revenge
What: She Wants Revenge
When: January 2006



This is really interesting. I should start by saying I have absolutely no knowledge of this band prior to listening. I read a single paragraph review on a blog somewhere about 2 years ago, so downloaded it, and it’s taken that long to get around to it. It’s amazing how much pre-knowledge can influence an opinion – I really am approaching this completely neutral, I don’t even know what they look like – It’s refreshing! Makes writing this harder, but better somehow too.. I get to evaluate the music without it being coloured by personalities. Exciting.

It opens a bit like a spy theme, which really sets the tone. The whole album is really filmic, and conjures up really powerful, noir-y type visuals, old school back projection special effects, that sort of stuff – I love that stuff, it’s so cool.

There’s an energy that simmers throughout the whole thing, threatening to bubble over. The instrumentation is full of chilly, sleazy synths, and echo-y post punk guitar – think grimy club nights in warehouses. I Don’t Want to Fall in Love feels urgent, and a tiny bit creepy, benefitting from that undercurrent.

Track two, These Things is really interesting, quite the earworm. It’s actually a pretty cool song, but unfortunately it feels like the one that would get appropriated for some badly acted vampire-based TV drama (just in case anyone feels like lynching me, I’m not talking about True Blood, I mean the other one, or ten).

Vocalist Justin Warfield (yeah, I had to look that up) sounds almost exactly like Paul Banks from Interpol, who have GOT to be an influence, that sound is all over this record, Tear You Apart is almost a carbon copy, not to say it’s a bad song, because it’s not, it just REALLY sounds like Interpol. They even go all anthemic on ‘Us’, which is immensely enjoyable, a stadium singalong waiting to happen.

There’s more to his voice than that though, On Broken Promises for Broken Hearts he goes a bit Bowie, and on the standout final track the tone his voice takes on when he sings the “she loves me, she loves me not” bit is really powerful.

So.. Overall, it’s a creepy, sleazy, filmic, dark, gloomy, interesting, exciting, confusing, sexy record. Good times.

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