Vain – Enough Rope
God bless Davy Vain. His twisted brand of rock ‘n’ roll – debauched, yet beautiful – is as unrelentlessly unique in 2012 as it was in 1989. From the opening seconds ushering ‘Greener’ into life the whiff of Sunset Strip is pervasive: the sleazy serpentine riffs, the massive drums, the rolling bass-line (not to mention the inappropriate artwork). But this was no Crue, Ratt or Poison rip-off. This was – and is – something else, something in Davy Vain’s crystalline pipes which pushes these songs – just as it did on 1989’s lost hard rock classic, ‘No Regrets’ – into the stratosphere. It’s effeminate, yet menacing; tender, yet nasty. Wrapped around a succession of hooks that Johnny Thunders and Michael Monroe would kill for, it is utterly, utterly captivating.
‘Triple X’ – which features the lyric ‘sex quicksand’ – is utterly ridiculous, preposterous, even, but in these hands it works. It’s the rawness that kills, leaving the New Wave inspired ‘Cindy’ and (the brilliant) ‘Distance of Love’ drenched in sweat. You can even forgive the lesser moments, the filler of ‘Vain’ and ‘Solid Gold’. Vain has always done more than most Sunset bands – more than bombast or the sleaze and glam, what we get here is something generally debauched, sensational and yet delicate, a series of very personal moments of lust made universal. It seaps out of the speakers, leaving the likes of ‘Worship You’ sounding genuinely dangerous – an ode to the desire to place a woman on a pedestal and do nasty, nasty things to her. During the title cut you realise that this is music where fun become abandon, pleasure becomes abuse and excess is an artform.
I feel dirty………………………give me more!
God bless Davy Vain. His twisted brand of rock ‘n’ roll – debauched, yet beautiful – is as unrelentlessly unique in 2012 as it was in 1989. From the opening seconds ushering ‘Greener’ into life the whiff of Sunset Strip is pervasive: the sleazy serpentine riffs, the massive drums, the rolling bass-line (not to mention the inappropriate artwork). But this was no Crue, Ratt or Poison rip-off. This was – and is – something else, something in Davy Vain’s crystalline pipes which pushes these songs – just as it did on 1989’s lost hard rock classic, ‘No Regrets’ – into the stratosphere. It’s effeminate, yet menacing; tender, yet nasty. Wrapped around a succession of hooks that Johnny Thunders and Michael Monroe would kill for, it is utterly, utterly captivating.
‘Triple X’ – which features the lyric ‘sex quicksand’ – is utterly ridiculous, preposterous, even, but in these hands it works. It’s the rawness that kills, leaving the New Wave inspired ‘Cindy’ and (the brilliant) ‘Distance of Love’ drenched in sweat. You can even forgive the lesser moments, the filler of ‘Vain’ and ‘Solid Gold’. Vain has always done more than most Sunset bands – more than bombast or the sleaze and glam, what we get here is something generally debauched, sensational and yet delicate, a series of very personal moments of lust made universal. It seaps out of the speakers, leaving the likes of ‘Worship You’ sounding genuinely dangerous – an ode to the desire to place a woman on a pedestal and do nasty, nasty things to her. During the title cut you realise that this is music where fun become abandon, pleasure becomes abuse and excess is an artform.
I feel dirty………………………give me more!
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