Still Hip

On their fifth studio album Raven in the Grave, The Raveonettes duo provides just over a half hour of their distorted instrumentals and easy melodies that all Raveonettes listeners have come to expect and know.

The first track, “Recharge and Revolt,” might remind you of something from their 2009 In and Out of Control album with their upbeat, simple-melodic sound. The first minute-and-a-half of the song is vocal-less, leaving you stuck with unimpressive distorted melodies for too long, but the chorus-less song kicks in later with the flat vocals Raveonettes fans are used to: “With a hole in my head I looked for you/Through the trenches of war the whole world through/My desire to leave with you I just can’t constrain.”

The new album strays away from their usual liveliness heard in singles like “Last Dance” and their other albums entirely with songs such as “Evil Seeds” and “Apparitions.” The songs, in all of their indie glory, sound gothic, shallow and sad, with the lyrics to back that up: “When it rains/On this town and in this heart/I betray the ones I’ve come to love the most,” “Evil Seeds” tells us.

While Raven in the Grave may not strike one as being a sincere or riveting album, fans shall not fear that they’ve changed their musical template or their topics of love and relationships. Don’t worry, they’re still hip.