Division of Laura Lee
Black City
Epitaph
Straight-ahead slacker rawk from Sweden that struts its way through 12 tracks of urban estrangement and confused teen angst. And while that doesn’t necessarily sound like a whole lot of fun, that is exactly what this album is. The defiant us-against-them feel-good stance of “We’ve Been Planning This For Years,” the boastful swagger of “Pretty Electric,” and the lazy, melancholic “The Truth is Fucked” all brim over with pride in the face of misery, self-respect in spite of constantly being put down. It’s a meeting of The Velvet Underground and Alice Cooper that’s remarkable only in that it works in 2002. Like The Strokes but with better songs, or The Hives with a punkier attitude, Division of Laura Lee are completely dated, but manage to sound as if they matter, and that they can make a difference simply by sticking around, by telling stories about themselves. It’s an utterly likeable concept, and one you can dance to as well. Not bad for a gang of black leather old school rockers.
Epitaph Records: http://www.epitaph.com
