Ride Your Heart
Dead Oceans Records, 2013
Dave’s Grade (for what it’s worth): A
I can’t stop listening to this damn album.
Los Angeles’ Bleached appears to aspire to sound like every girl group (or every girl-fronted) group you’ve ever heard, from the Shirelles to the Bangles to the Breeders. And that’s a good thing because over the course of its 37 minutes, Ride Your Heart – Bleached’s first full-length record, released in April on the Dead Oceans imprint – shakes up all of its SoCal influences in a giant aural blender and what comes out is, essentially, the great lost Go-Go’s album. Again, a good thing, because I’m hard pressed to find a better (or more fun and entertaining) rock record out this year, one that is immediately accessible yet deceptively complex.
Fronted by former Mika Miko members Jennifer and Jessica Clavin, Bleached takes us on a tour of all their influences, at first listen glossed up for a night out under a crystal-clear Southern California sky. “Looking For a Fight,” the opener, is what the Ramones would sound like if they were fronted by Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson of the B-52’s. The killer first single, “Next Stop,” follows. But as the record moves along, the Clavin sisters dig deeper. “Dead in Your Head,” with its soaring, multilayered psychedelic chorus, as well as the longing title track, wouldn’t seem out of place on the Beach Boys’ legendary Pet Sounds. “Waiting by the Telephone” recalls pre-Parallel Lines Blondie; Phil Spector could have produced “Dreaming Without You” for one of his girl groups in the 1960s. Ditto the closer, “When I Was Yours.”
Much like L.A. alt godmothers the Go-Go’s 1981 debut, Beauty and the Beat, hidden under the layer of cheer lie songs of loss and wondering. “Dead in Your Head,” clearly the centerpiece of the record, laments the inadvertent hurting of a boy the singer “loves the most,” but asks the chorus’ pointed question, “When you close your eyes at night, do you dream about all the things dead in your head?” In “Looking for a Fight,” singer Jennifer Clavin warns listeners right off the bat that she’s “not right.” In “When I Was Yours,” she notes that she “has a bad brain that can’t be saved.” As the song (and album) fade into a burst of feedback, Jennifer mourns over the noise “I’ve almost tried to lift away.”
Brilliant in its pacing and nearly flawless in its production, Ride Your Heart is an astonishing debut. Able to blend its influences into something that never sounds derivative, Bleached – with any sort of luck – will be the soundtrack of many endless summers ahead.
Dave’s Grade (for what it’s worth): A
I can’t stop listening to this damn album.
Los Angeles’ Bleached appears to aspire to sound like every girl group (or every girl-fronted) group you’ve ever heard, from the Shirelles to the Bangles to the Breeders. And that’s a good thing because over the course of its 37 minutes, Ride Your Heart – Bleached’s first full-length record, released in April on the Dead Oceans imprint – shakes up all of its SoCal influences in a giant aural blender and what comes out is, essentially, the great lost Go-Go’s album. Again, a good thing, because I’m hard pressed to find a better (or more fun and entertaining) rock record out this year, one that is immediately accessible yet deceptively complex.
Fronted by former Mika Miko members Jennifer and Jessica Clavin, Bleached takes us on a tour of all their influences, at first listen glossed up for a night out under a crystal-clear Southern California sky. “Looking For a Fight,” the opener, is what the Ramones would sound like if they were fronted by Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson of the B-52’s. The killer first single, “Next Stop,” follows. But as the record moves along, the Clavin sisters dig deeper. “Dead in Your Head,” with its soaring, multilayered psychedelic chorus, as well as the longing title track, wouldn’t seem out of place on the Beach Boys’ legendary Pet Sounds. “Waiting by the Telephone” recalls pre-Parallel Lines Blondie; Phil Spector could have produced “Dreaming Without You” for one of his girl groups in the 1960s. Ditto the closer, “When I Was Yours.”
Much like L.A. alt godmothers the Go-Go’s 1981 debut, Beauty and the Beat, hidden under the layer of cheer lie songs of loss and wondering. “Dead in Your Head,” clearly the centerpiece of the record, laments the inadvertent hurting of a boy the singer “loves the most,” but asks the chorus’ pointed question, “When you close your eyes at night, do you dream about all the things dead in your head?” In “Looking for a Fight,” singer Jennifer Clavin warns listeners right off the bat that she’s “not right.” In “When I Was Yours,” she notes that she “has a bad brain that can’t be saved.” As the song (and album) fade into a burst of feedback, Jennifer mourns over the noise “I’ve almost tried to lift away.”
Brilliant in its pacing and nearly flawless in its production, Ride Your Heart is an astonishing debut. Able to blend its influences into something that never sounds derivative, Bleached – with any sort of luck – will be the soundtrack of many endless summers ahead.
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