The Raveonettes - Beauty Dies EP

Oct 29, 2008

The third in a series of four EPs that the Danish scuzz rock duo intend to release by the year's end, Beauty Dies treads both familiar and unchartered paths. First, the familiar..'Young and Beautiful' merges their usual influences of The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Stooges, topped off with a deliciously elegiac female vocals.

From here, things get a little weird for someone who hasn't heard much from the band since their rather excellent Attack of the Ghostriders back in 2002. 'Black/White' is all rhythm section; a heavily treated metronomic drum loop and bassline that's damn near funky dominating proceedings with only the odd guitar flourish breaking the groove. This new found love of all things danceable continues on 'Here Comes the End', which admittedly sounds predominantly like a different era Mary Chain (the shuffle recalling Honey's Dead). The EP concludes with the most weird yet; the off kilter jazz rhythms of 'The Thief' leading into the closest you suspect such avid garage rock protagonists will get to a psychedelic epic.

The Beauty Dies EP doesn't reinvent the wheel - when your vocals never deviate from the early 90s shoegazing template that will always prove difficult - but it does show a welcome broadening of their sonic palette, and for fans of proper indie, that will probably prove enough.

Oliver W J Rock

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