In and Out of Control by The Raveonettes
LABEL: Vice Records

“A far more accessible album with a handful of tracks that would, quite surprisingly, sound just as good in a massive arena as they would in some sticky-floored dive in the Lower East Side.”

To understand In and Out of Control is to know that this album (and the better part of the Raveonettes back catalog) is the really awesome soundtrack to the lives of people much, much cooler than you, me or anyone we collectively know. You and your cargo pants* are obviously welcome to listen if you’d like, but it's honestly best you just know where everyone stands up front.

The Raveonettes are the kinds of people who look like they were born in black leather and perfectly smoky eye makeup. They totally “get” modern art, bangs and Jim Jarmusch. They know how to properly tie a scarf. And because they just exude so much goddamn cool, they’re seemingly incapable of making anything but very cool albums.

In and Out of Control picks up right where 2007’s delightfully fuzzy Lust Lust Lust left off. Guitars are almost always swimming through muddy lakes of noisy distortion and Sharin Foo’s vocals are tauntingly sweet and carelessly nonchalant.    

But where the last album often dove headfirst into walls of noise and punishing feedback, Control is a far more accessible album with a handful of tracks that would, quite surprisingly, sound just as good in a massive arena as they would in some sticky-floored dive in the Lower East Side. 

“D.R.U.G.S.” sounds like it could have very easily been right at home in your older brother’s 1988 IROC-Z. But it’s not at all dated. It’s fist pumping American testosterone tempered by a hazy cloud of modern European cool.   

The sunny, ass-shaking “Last Dance” is such a feel-good tune that if it doesn’t end up playing during the credits of some critically acclaimed indie comedy in the next 12-months, it’s because California finally cracked off the continent and sucked Hollywood into the Pacific. 

The sleepy “Oh, I Buried You Today” is the album’s only bummer. A 1:21 rough patch in an otherwise wholly interesting album. And truth be told, it’s hard not to feel like the upbeat pacing of “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)” is a little counterintuitive, but it’s such a good track that you quickly forget why you would have ever been so daft as to question a Raveonettes decision. 

In and Out of Control is dripping in almost toxic levels of cool. If ingested, it could probably cure acne and baldness and back hair in a matter of minutes. It’s dense and creative but still surprisingly easy to immediately like and enjoy. It’s guitars and girls and smoke and leather and Europe and if that ever becomes a bad combination then we’re all in trouble.  

*That’s unfair. You’re probably not wearing cargo pants. Sorry.


REVIEWED BY ALEC BRINEGAR
ALEC'S FAVORITE TRACKS: "Last Dance" • "D.R.U.G.S." • "Breaking Into Cars"

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