The Raveonettes seem content to simply squeeze
every imaginable ounce of usable influence out of The Jesus And Mary Chain.
That's the essence of Lust Lust Lust, their third album, and that was the drive
behind the two before it, though they also found time for occasional detours
into Sonic Youth knockoffs. Lust Lust Lust doesn't look to the greatness of the first
two JAMC albums, either: It sticks to the neutered sounds of later,
drug-drained releases like Automatic, Honey's Dead, and Stoned And
Dethroned.
On "Blush," the guitar makes a decent noise, but when sonic plagiarism is this
brazen, the songs need to be better. One big difference: The Raveonettes'
prescription calls for the "sultry" vocals and fashion-forward presence of
Sharin Foo, who still fails to distance herself from the Shirley
Manson-meets-'90s-rockabilly/garage-rock-revival crutch. It's a narrow frame of
reference that The Raveonettes seem likely to stick with; hopefully, on future
albums, the songs will get more memorable than this batch.