REVIEW: Love and Rockets, Lift (Red Ant)
- Niles Baranowski
For a while, Love and Rockets were the best source of the odd musical alloy known as goth-pop. While equally as pretentious as their former band Bauhaus, they left the bombast and grand sweeping ballads to the band's moody former frontman, Peter Murphy, to create a mix of black lipstick and white noise that had a note of menace and importance to it, but was ultimately incredibly catchy. Sure, they had a number of tear-jerking ballads to use as window dressing, but more often than not, the lyrics were laughable (see "Kundalini Express" if you disagree); it was as though in the Bauhaus divorce settlement, Murphy had walked away with the words, leaving Daniel Ash, David J. and Kevin Haskins with only their instruments.
On this latest record, Love and Rockets seem to have jumped onto the au courant bandwagon, however, and traded their instruments in for samplers and synths. While Lift isn't the first time they've attempted an electronic record, it's miles ahead of its predecessor (1994's Hot Trip To Heaven) because it has a sense of the Love and Rockets identity to it.
Though the best songs here all make use of programmed beats, canned strings and even a Bauhaus sample or two, they don't float off into electro-ether like the others do thanks to Daniel Ash's icy hiss. Both charismatic and acidic, it's always been Love and Rockets's secret weapon to save a doomed song and here it also serves to unify the numerous different styles of dance music being brought out, from the frantic house music of "Resurrection Hex" to the smoky dub of "Deep Deep Down" and even the groovy pop stylings of "Holy Fool."
Probably Lift's answer to "So Alive," "Holy Fool" is a good indication what this record could have been. For this one song, they found the perfect mix of electronic augmentation and old fashioned Earth, Sun, Moon-style songwriting. With the help of Luscious Jackson, the beats come alive but they cooperate with the song rather than subverting it. Even though the rest of the album is sort of sketchy, with a couple of cookie-cutter acid house tracks like "R.I.P. 20 C." or either version of the title track for every truly exciting one (I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the somber "Bad For You," which I could almost see Tricky covering), one can't really fault them. After all, with a highly successful Bauhaus reunion taking place right now, they've got to keep their priorities straight. We can only hope, though, that Peter Murphy nixes the idea of making Bauhaus an electronic act.
