It looks like I can officially give up my last little dregs of fascination for them.
Salon posted this:
She Wants Revenge, "She Wants Revenge"
New Los Angeles group She Wants Revenge might sound like they fit the hot new band template, or at least the hot new band template from three years ago: "A retro goth-pop duo that out-Interpols Interpol," as Rolling Stone (three stars out of five) calls them. But this isn't singer Justin Warfield's first attempt at riding the pop music zeitgeist. Indeed, this would be the same Justin Warfield who first appeared in 1993 as a Prince Paul-produced, "daisy age"-inspired rapper (on "My Field Trip to Planet 9") and resurfaced a couple of years later with "The Justin Warfield Supernaut," an album of Lenny Kravitz-esque faux '70s guitar jams.
So, has Warfield finally hit on a winning formula with She Wants Revenge's eponymous debut? The record certainly has its influences carefully mapped out, at least according to Rolling Stone, which finds the band "deploying snippets of Joy Division, Bauhaus, the Cure and other dark New Wave acts with a precision that borders on parody." But while Rolling Stone concludes that She Wants Revenge "steal from the best, and steal well," others are less than convinced. The San Francisco Chronicle (three out of five) calls the group "the made-for-TV version of Joy Division, channeling the darkness without any of the enlightenment," while the New York Times says that "She Wants Revenge" is "all very retro and atmospheric, but so contrived that it's hard to take too seriously."
"'She Wants Revenge' could have been the best the album of 1983," observes Newsday (Grade B), nailing the issue for many critics. "The problem, of course, is that [it] didn't come out 23 years ago. It's here now  you can't help but wonder why they've done it."
Fine, I'll say it. I was wrong. I fell for it. However, now I'm trying to make up for it by getting the word out.
posted by fulsome @ 9:52 AM
