Few bands can kick my synesthesia into high gear like the Raveonettes. Their sound is coated in glorious contradictions: Shoegaze static spilling forth from the guitars, keyboards twinkling like bright, blinding stars, booming bass and drums, rapturous harmonies that allude to the Everly Brothers and girl groups and evoke nostalgia for a time you may never have inhabited, but suddenly feel immersed in. The luscious layers flood the senses.
The newest offering from the Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo, Pe’ahi II, references their last full-length album, 2014’s Pe’ahi. With its similar introspective themes, familiar musical touchpoints, and subtle deviations from the Raveonettes‘ template, Pe’ahi II could be considered a conceptual sequel to that album.
Pe’Ahi is a wave break in Maui, and it seems appropriate that a band that capitalize on a surfy guitar aesthetic would name albums after ocean undulations. Critics saw the originalPe’ahi as a slight divergence from the 1950s and 1960s Americana sonic and visual persona the group cultivated. Early 2000s albums such as Chain Gang of Love and Pretty in Black cemented this style.
By the time Lust Lust Lust exploded onto the scene, leading with the epic single “Aly Walk With Me”, that signature sound had gotten more expansive, the distortion dirtier, the harmonies more incandescent, and reverb reverbing for days. It was as though the Raveonettes had pioneered their own “noise-noir” genre. I played Lust Lust Lust endlessly when it came out, and I still consider it one of the top five albums of the 2000s.
Whereas the firstPe’ahi reveled in a cleaner palette (employing harps and xylophones in addition to the usual rock instruments),Pe’ahi II,to my ears, exults a bit more in the cacophony-meets-euphony ethos that makes the Raveonettes so mind-blowing. The incongruous clashing of sounds yields both visceral and blissful thrills.
The Raveonettes were clearly inspired by the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Ronettes in equal measure. Jesus and Mary Chain were also inspired by Phil Spector’s girl-pop, but the Raveonettes augment that aspect of the sound, sculpting angelic melodies to marry to scuzzy, fuzzy feedback. That’s what sets them entirely apart from being mere Jesus and Mary Chain imitators, as they are sometimes accused of being.
For my money, Pe’ahi II is a better album than the original Pe’ahi. Maybe that’s because I prefer my Raveonettes to be all abrasive white noise—leavened with holy harmonies, yes, but dominated by dissonance that I can actually see and feel. Pe’ahi had fuzzy edges, to be sure, but Pe’ahi II is rife with charging, outsized riffs and reverb that have an almost confrontational presence, bolstered by intermittent electronic elements.
The entire enterprise feels more immediate and immersive than the original Pe’ahi, though that could just be me, starved as I have been for new Raveonettes material. Sure, there was Atomized, an “anti-album”, The Raveonettes Sing…, and some other random output. This is not to be dismissive, of course, but proper studio Raveonettes material is paramount, and finally, we have it.
Pe’ahi II opens its door with “Strange”, a waltzy girl-pop tune with lovelorn lyrics. It’s a subdued opener, which helps ease us into the album’s textures and topics. “Strange”, with its lulling groove, gives way to album highlight “Blackest”, which starts deceptively mellow but quickly gains blasting steam. As the first single from Pe’ahi II, “Blackest” is the best Raveonettes song since “Aly Walk with Me”. Like that song, it’s large and in charge, big and noisy but with a more unorthodox structure and minimalist lyrics, gliding you along its moonlit wave in fierce fashion.
“Dissonant”, with its themes of lust, is a hard-charging number with a slow, cinematic instrumental break in the middle that threatens to destabilize the momentum until the song comes roaring back to life. The quasi-rage of “Dissonant” leads into the slightly more meditative “Killer”. The song is one of those easy-to-love Raveonettes bangers whose transcendent serenity is shrouded in feedback. Then it becomes completely derailed, trailing off into a nearly three-minute piano and drum loop. It’s bizarrely beautiful.
Album midpoint “Lucifer”, a song laying bare all the demons that love has wrought, is a deliciously menacing affair, with thundering percussion, but tempered with ethereal vocals, eventually fading into an electronic buzz. “Speed” is an oddly wistful tune whose somewhat self-lacerating lyrics provide a counterpoint to the ascendant feeling of the music and vocals. “Sunday School” follows in its wake, providing expressions of romantic disillusionment in a cozily familiar Raveonettes setting.
The culmination of the short surf ride that isPe’ahi IIis “Ulrikke”, which begs to be cranked up to 11.It’s aggressively exhilarating angst, a spikier take on the themes of the muted opener of “Strange.”
The songs on Pe’ahi II germinated ten years ago, during the era of the first Pe’ahi, which the band claim was a time of great personal turmoil. So it would make sense that lyrically, the songs echo the tumult in those original tunes. What Pe’ahi II does differently from the original Pe’ahi is indulge in some quirky arrangements, lengthy outros, and musical tangents that point to possible future experimentation in those directions.
Most significantly, Pe’ahi II provides an absolutely essential cathartic sensory overload, in that absolutely inimitable Raveonettes way.
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