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Readers Wifes – Gaslight
It’s been a few years in coming, but finally the Readers Wifes are about to release their debut album “Gaslight” on the 10th September via all the usual digital download outlets. And – without wanting to over-egg the pudding – it’s a bit of a corker.
The title sums it up perfectly. It’s an album of murky light and dark shadow, the sort of palette that seems perfectly suited to describing both the dangerous back-streets of Victorian London and a world of grim 1960s/70s squats, and that’s a feel that pervades the album through and through.
It’s also a quintessentially English affair, the sort of thing the Pet Shop Boys might come up with if they became punks and swapped their irony and bittersweet melancholy for songs about dangerous sex, sleaze and self-hatred.
Former single “Nostalgia” (featuring Justin Bond of Kiki and Herb fame in fine scandal-mongering form) is a highlight, with its gossipy anecdotes of Candy Darling’s and Charles Hawtrey’s last days. It also features probably my favourite lead-out of a track ever. Similarly “Boy Ain’t Right” is a brilliantly punchy, scathing track with a rolling disco beat with echos of Divine’s “You Think You’re a Man” and “25 Floors” is possessed of an irresistible saw-tooth disco-octave bassline.
There’s a few rockier, more mosh-pit styled tracks in the mix too. The punchy “Black Silk Stocking” and the list-based sleaze of “Gays In Suits” are probably the least interesting parts of the album for me, but the formula works brilliantly on “Cheap Dress” which features a surprisingly angelic ending.
There’s some more delicate arrangements here too like “Shiner”, whose disturbing lyrics are belied by a languorous delivery. There’s also the sensitive and battered feeling of “The Women who Went to the Chair” and the paean to lost youth that is “16″ (although for me this is by far my least favourite track).
All of this is book-ended by two simply lovely tracks: “I Love You at 200,000 Feet” feels something like a slowed down “Light Years” with its pulsing bass and twinkly arpeggios; and the final track: “Weekend Colder, Brighter” feels like stepping into the dawn of a new day after a night of serious excess and heartbreak. For an album which seems so bitter at times, the hesitant hope of this track is a really nice touch.
To be honest, Gaslight is easily one of the two best albums to be released in what has been a fairly barren summer pop-wise.
Posted on August 26, 2007 | Filed Under Pop Music
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