The Raveonettes – Observator

Noise Control

With the recent influx of noise, dream pop and shoegaze bands popping up on both American coasts, there’s always been a couple artists that have been playing loud and reverb-y in the past decade or so. The Raveonettes’ brand of Danish indie rock has always had influences of Creation Records artist like My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain. Observator rounds out the duo’s sound, showing the younger acts how to drown out whispery vocals properly.

“Young and Cold” is an acoustic strum-a-long with a Dylan-esque vibe. With Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo crooning about a tiring past, the added feedback and reverb are enough to push the memories of misspent youth and regretful relationships to the back of one’s mind.

“Curse the Night” offers obvious nods to quintessential shoegaze band, Slowdive, with whispery, dual vocals and a mechanical, repetitive drum beat. Twinkly guitar plucking, along with the added noise, push this to some of the dream pop standards of today–of course, set by groups like M83 and Ringo Deathstarr.

Tracks like “Sinking With the Sun” and “She Owns the Sun” are your typical 90’s noise pop sway-a-longs–think the soundtrack to “My So Called Life” or whatever Blossom listened to.

With a a decade under their belt, the Raveonette’s seem to know what they’re doing and what kind of music they want to make, but is it enough to keep up with the 20-something laptop wizards and effect peddal warriors of today? One would hope so. All you really need to play fun, loud music is an amp, some reverb and a sense of what should and what shouldn’t enter your headphones. Observator is quite the testament to that.