The Raveonettes

To give you an idea of how good The Raveonettes are, the first time I saw the band they managed to blow the speakers in the venue after about three songs. You might not expect a noisy time, but that’s what you’ll get. The duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have been plying their very own brand of dark, Mary Chain influenced goth ‘n’ roll since 2003’s Chain Gang of Love, and their style has been undimmed by time and untainted by passing fads. What you see is what you get with The Raveonettes: 50s influences get drenched in reverb and feedback to create snappy pop songs with a rather dark edge. Wagner and Foo are both fascinating stage presences; not really interacting with each other or the crowd, both members hide a controlled aggression behind their glamorously understated cool exteriors. They swagger through tracks like ‘Love in a Trashcan’, ‘Heartbreak Soul’ and ‘That Great Love Sound’, all of which sound like lost classics before managing to imbue a cover of ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ with a new power and energy despite the countless versions that have come before this one. Even a more unusual song like ‘Summer Moon’ from Raven in the Grave works better live, and doesn’t disrupt the seamless run of brilliant tracks. One piece of advice? Don’t go and see them in a tiny club during a hot, hot summer. I suspect that all the sweat and steam helped blow those speakers that night.

Last year, I did an interview with Sharin Foo - the female half of The Raveonettes - which actually turned out to be kind of pointless. The event it was due to promote - the Danish duo’s headline set at the Ja Ja Ja Nordic music festival at London’s Roundhouse - didn’t end up happening, because Sune Rose Wagner - Foo’s opposite number - failed to recover from appendicitis in time. It was a real shame, but part of me wondered just how fitting they were as headliners of a Scandinavian event; they hail from Denmark, of course, but their music is very much steeped in American influences, particularly The Velvet Underground. On their most recent record, Observator, they moved in a slightly poppier direction, but their achingly cool live shows remained largely unchanged; with a drummer fleshing out the lineup and in front of amps stamped with the slogan ‘RAVE ON’, they delivered quickfire sets that barely saw them stop for breath; there was little in the way of interaction with the crowd, but that didn’t stop them from achieving a genuinely intimate atmosphere when playing a handful of stripped-back acoustic cuts. As with their records, the bedrock of their sound is the uncanny way in which their voices work together; their harmonies really soar on stage. Ostensibly, the band are now working on a follow-up to Observator, but they might just be back sooner than you think...all I’m saying is watch this space.

For more than 10 years the Raveonettes have consistently produced some of the most beautiful vocal harmonies and surf/noise/garage guitar chords of any band out there. The Danish duo is a pleasure to look at too, unique in Sharin's tall Danish figure mixed with that Asian look. The only complaint is that the beatbox is way too loud and completely unnecessary. The rest of the music and the live drums speak for themselves -- and maybe add a live bass or not, but the music needs to shine through more than that electronic background noise.