THE RAVEONETTES

Raven in the Grave

[Vice]

In 2008, garage-rock revivalists the Raveonettes got their hands on some synths and recorded two uncharacteristic EPs, Beauty Dies and Sometimes They Drop By. The Danish duo still drew from ’50s and ’60s rock, but rather than stomping on distortion pedals they summoned the woozy-cool textures of ’80s dream-pop and David Lynch film scores. They followed those samplers with 2009’s bubblegum palette-cleanser In and Out of Control, but on their fifth album, Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner set aside the surf-rock kitsch and revisit their darker, more electronic impulses. They contemplate the afterlife on “War in Heaven,” while “Summer Moon” and “My Time’s Up” offer variations on the theme from Twin Peaks—a tune their slower songs tend to reference. Foo has called this a wintry album, and rightly so—but the late-disc mood-breaker “Ignite” find the Raves sunny and hopeful, imagining a love that sets their hearts aflame. –Kenneth Partridge