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Frausdots |
| Couture, Couture, Couture |
| Sub Pop | 2004 | Album |
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I recoiled at first when I heard the excerpt from "A Horse with No Name", done all 80's- style and tacked onto the beginning of the first track on Couture, Couture, Couture, but I'm glad that I didn't let my initial misgiving get the better of me, because that line started to make sense to me as I listened on, and the Frausdots debut cd has since become an (albeit perhaps guilty) pleasure indeed. The LA duo Brent Rademaker and Michelle Loiselle, along with a collection of talented studio musicians, have made an 80's inspired glam-pop epic landscape of an album that may very well be one of the best releases of the year.
Aptly-named (and I don't know what the word means, but trust me), the Frausdots were born when former shoegazer and Beachwood Sparks guitarist Rademaker fell in love with ex-Guns & Roses backup singer Loiselle while listening to the Cure in Spain. Upon their return to the West Coast, they hunkered down together to write a cycle of jaggedly sardonic yet dreamily romantic pop tunes about the "stylish addiction" and shallow image-conscious society they live in, songs that at first glance stylistically appear to have nothing to do with each other's previous band experiences. As a fan of both Beachwood Sparks and the Cure-two bands I never thought I'd ever mention together-I'm impressed at the unlikely accomplishment that became Couture, Couture, Couture, a very LA album that succeeds, and in no small part due to the lush production it's been given..
With its sun-drenched album cover (ala Air), inside visions of the duo doing their best androgenous Bowie/Ronson morphing into mannequins-thang, and obvious ode to the 80's, the record-buying public may question the legitimacy of this work at first as I did, but given the bands pedigree, and upon further inspection, they should realize that this is an extremely well thought out mélange of an album to be sure, and one reminiscent of Alex Chilton-era Replacements, the Soft Boys, forgotten Aussi band Paul Kelly and the Messengers, The Smithereens, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Brian Jonestown Massacre among others, all rolled into 10 well-defined tunes. The production can seem a tad heavy-handed at times, which has made it awkward for little old indie-me to push this record on friends who've stopped by, but this is as radio-ready material as anything ever heard by Duran Duran at Chess King, so why shy away from potential large-market success I say?
Pounding drum fills, scathing guitar licks, soaring harmonies and poignant biting lyrics (like "rejected, deleted, controlling, completed, obsessive,conceded, denying, believing" from the infectiously catchy ballad Soft Light, sung with the help of ethereal guest vocalist Mia Doi Todd) abound on every track and lodge themselves firmly in your subconscious, but my favorite cuts on the album have to be Current Bedding (a song which I initially balked at as being all over the place, with its Elvis Costello and the Attractions-esque beginning that gives way to a driving falsetto-tinged chorus), and the final track, Tomorrow's Sky, a song that winningly countered any lingering suspicions of pretension I may have had, as Rademaker almost seems to be saying "who gives a flying fuck, nothing is as it seems anyway", as he sings "do do do do do do do do wow!". |
| Alex Emanuel |
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