Peaches, Chicks On Speed, The Rapture, LCD Soundsytem, Miss Kittin. There isn’t anything we haven’t seen here before in one degenerate guise or another. But then you could say that about anything. I’ve seen plenty bags of chips before, but that doesn’t mean I’ll refuse a wee bag should a plate of haddock and peas look naked without them. It really all depends on how many you want stocked in your freezer at any one time, I guess. But there’s no doubt about it: when the occasion arises, they can be the perfect accompaniment. But you should have at least one tray in your freezer without them.
By the press gangs’ own admission, not much is known about this mysterious three-piece beyond the handful of sleaze-grabbing vinyl-only releases like ‘On the Roof’, ‘Sharks’ and ‘Someone Like You’ leaked onto the airwaves between 1999 and May 2006. Comprising of super hot bitch queen Maria Eilersen, and chums Åsa Cederqvist & Nandor Hegedüs, Revl9n for the most part slither rather persuasively across the Stockholm, NYC, Paris landscape in their fetish lingerie. The sweaty, leathery growls and stutter of ‘United’ work well enough, even if it does throw in no immodest dose of M’s ‘Popmusik’ into the can. Edgy, aggressive and screaming with all manner of twisted beats, it’s a trashy dose of electro with a fun and lively rolling banter. There’s even a touch of the early Madonnas about ‘Muscles’ – a cutesy, irony-heavy come-on that scores just the right volume of innuendo and in your face posturing with the band’s secretive funk bent. ‘Someone Like You’ is the same. Crunchy guitars, souped-up bass patterns, vocal orgasms, and squarely minimal beats. A bit like Thin Lizzy produced by the DFA. And ‘Dead Town’ is downright joyful. In a grunty, groaney fashion, naturally. Imagine Madonna’s ‘Holiday’ dragged through the feisty chambers of a little shop of horrors and suffering from Sadistic Personality Disorder. But ‘Dead Town’ also marks the point at which Revl9n descend into caricature. The innuendo gets less ambiguous, more laboured, more bold and before you know it you’re up and partying about with the likes of Republica and the cast of Deep Throat – with a dozen or so Hill’s Angels running around in the background.
We all like a bit of smut now again. But you can’t base a career around it.