She Wants Revenge, the first record from the Los Angeles duo of the same name, is in many ways the generic debut: occasionally promising, frequently overreaching, rather too in-thrall to its influences and, ultimately, not wholly satisfying.
SWR do icy, gothic electro rock, deeply in thrall to Joy Division (via Interpol). Unfortunately, they don’t do an awful lot else.
You’ll hear few records as unified in mood and pace as this, and the one-dimensional nature of the material becomes wearisome over the album’s 73(!?)-minute duration.
Drum tracks programmed with industrial precision, melancholic guitar runs, icy synth touches, deep Ian Curtis vocals – a promising (if over familiar) formula, but one which requires more fine-tuning than it's afforded here.
SWR do make occasional stabs at excellence: the unnamed hidden track builds from sombre piano chords and metronomic pitter-patter to a breakneck climax. There are a couple of pure pop thrills – ‘Tear You Apart’ has a fantastic, juddering bassline and a palpable sense of danger, while ‘These Things’ possesses a nicely world-weary elegance. Best track by a distance is ‘Disconnect’ – a short, sweet electronic piano lullaby, set against distant sounds of rainfall.
There are a number of disappointing missteps, though. Justin Warfield’s deep, dark vocals jar on the more disco-flavoured ‘I Don’t Wanna Fall In Love’, and the sweeping gloom of the opening verse on ‘She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not’ is thoroughly ruined by the boorish gracelessness of the chorus; a ham fisted lurch that would find a home on Mansun’s legendarily execrable Little Kix album.
By the record’s end, the sense of contrived, manicured gloom feels more Linkin Park than Joy Division, and with fewer classic choruses. Ultimately, She Wants Revenge never quite acquire the sense of dark foreboding they were clearly aiming for.