To be honest, I was already hooked on this album before the aching and faintly crackling ‘Sun Studios’ opener ‘The Heavens’ finished its sweet melancholy deluge of hopelessness. Why? Because I’m a complete sucker for anything ‘retro’. In fact I was pretty much born hankering mournfully for the past and the consoling familiarity of some pined for golden-period. Blame my mother. Blame the war. Blame the endless and preposterous reruns of Champion The Wonder Horse, ‘Whirlibirds’ and Casey Jones during the school holidays. To me and others like me, the fifties and sixties seem only like yesterday, perpetually staged in bright pastel colours and eerie, pencil-thin retro typefaces and played out against a background of sleigh-bells, double-basses and twangy, melancholy guitar arpeggios. And this is precisely the deal you get with songs like ‘Seductress Of Bums’, ‘Red Tan’ and the bluesy, heartbreaking ‘I Was Young’. True, you could place the faultless syrupy harmonies of The Every Brother’s ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’ or Buddy Holly’s ‘Listen To Me’ right along of tracks like ‘Here Comes Mary’ without observing a join, or swap the heavy kick-drums and crashing tambourines of ‘Ode To LA’ with its woozy, swooning godparent ‘Be My Baby’ (both featuring the delectable Ronnie Spector, suggestively enough) but it’s all played out with such worthy exactitude and such obvious affection that it would churlish to find it anything less than delightful. And if you still doubting the veracity of this celebration then you’ve even got guests that include former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker and Suicide principal Martin Rev for godssake.
Fans will notice a slight retreat from the fuzzy, gothic nuances of ‘Chain Gang Of Love’ across much of the album in favour of a sweeter, more tender clarity of sound and intention, but for those of you hanerking for the scuzzy, deranged lust of ‘Attack of the Ghost Riders’, ‘Heartbreak Stroll’ and ‘Veronica Fever’ you’re likely to find no small degree of solace in the brutally sexy single ‘Love In Trash Can’ – featuring one hell of a fat and cantankerous surf-guitar solo –and the griping, scratchy tremolo of songs like ‘Sleepwalking’ and ‘Somewhere In Texas’.
It’s a mighty fine album, painstakingly put together by the darkly glamorous duo, saturated in noir and proofed by some incendiary devices that wouldn’t be out of place in an Action Man’s Operations Kit-Bag.
Welcome back to the Five and Dime Sharin and Sune. Welcome back.