Though it was nearly 10:30, the Raveonettes weren’t on stage. The crowd could guess what they were in for as the group hit the 9:30 club, though: two huge amps decorated with stencils and black spray paint sat on the stage. One, on the left, said RAVE, while the other said ON. While waiting, the audience was also treated to several consecutive jams from late ‘70s noise-punk pioneers Suicide, a clear influence on the Swedish garage rockers’ reverb-obsessed sound. Several low-intensity smoke machines simultaneously let off an atmospheric complement to so much aural buzz and imprecision.
The band took the stage Oct. 16 without much pomp, eschewing even a quick “thank you” or “hi” to delve directly into spacey jamming. The Raveonettes, usually just Sune Rose Wagner and Sharon Foo, were joined by a drummer at a tiny kit and some additional help on bass.
Foo, by the way, does nothing to abate any stereotypes you might have of Swedish women as being beautiful, tall, and blonde; in a black pencil skirt and kitten heels, she appeared practically Hitchcock-ian. Wagner was laid back and artfully unkempt, wearing a loose, striped T-shirt, tight black jeans, and what might have possibly been faint traces of smudged black eyeliner. Of course, it would only make sense for a band with such a smoky, retro sound to look so film noir.
The band rolled out a set of mostly new tunes off “In and Out of Control,” an album released on Oct. 6. Like most of their fuzzily ferocious oeuvre, “Control” features twangy surf guitars, healthy doses of reverb and gracefully somnambulatory bass lines, which translate into a live setting as a massive, plush wave of sound that practically thunderclaps through the listener.
Songs that don’t seem to have much bite on the record, like the chanty and febrile “D.R.U.G.S.,” became raucous waves of buzz and havoc once performed live, all the better for missing their studio production and sheen. Live percussion and sheer mass of noise amped the band’s tunes from relatively tame to ear-ringingly raw.
What remained the same, remarkably, was the lushness of Wagner and Foo’s harmonized vocals. Some perfect voodoo band chemistry kept them on pitch and in line during even the most complex bends of melody, a feat of remarkable ethereality and beauty.
Most notable among the new numbers was the anthemic “Boys Who Rape Should Be Destroyed,” almost certainly the only song about sexual assault you could get away with listening to with your mother (it would probably remind her enough of the Ronettes to miss lines like “Those fuckers stay in your head”). The difference between content and delivery here reveal Wagner and Foo’s deliciously black sense of humor, and also work as a wink towards critics who bemoan the band’s dependence on retro sounds.
The show reached a fevered (and punishingly loud) climax when the band soloed in “Aly Walk With Me,” the first single from 2008’s critically acclaimed “Lust Lust Lust.” Wagner and Foo palmed and scratched the pickups of their guitars, simultaneously making them screech and moan into a frenzied cloud of noise while the Rockabilly-flavored bass continued to slink forward and the drums clapped ominously. The moment distilled everything great about the Raveonettes — there was something old, something new, something borrowed and, perhaps most importantly, something crude.
The band ended their encore with “That Great Love Sound,” a song that bizarrely made an appearance in a JC Penney back-to-school ad a few years ago, when all but the band’s most fervent fans probably thought the Raveonettes would recede into obscurity like most of the “rock revival” acts that rode the same initial wave to hipsterdom (it was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it, The Vines?). But The Raveonettes continue to keep on keeping on, and this show was a very decided and loud affirmation that much isn’t going to change about that anytime soon.
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
