Baby In Vain
For the Kids
Partisan Records
Copenhagen’s Baby In Vain have found the secret crossroad where sludgy meets sexy with their orgasmic grunge blues track “Muscles.” The guitar attack bears both Jack White’s signature flair and Kurt Cobain’s noisy approach to melody, but veers off into the sort of strange territories that would find this trio of ladies drinking champagne, eating jello, and decorating a masked Marky Mark’s torso with oyster meat… Yeah, cause that’s the song’s florid video and, though unexpected, it works.
The rest of their For the Kids EP is more of this same exploration of taboo, temptation, and terrors. Opening up with the possessed psych freakout of “Jesus Freaks,” here’s a debut that boldly announces itself as a band that won’t play it safe. The song is uncomfortable and murderous, yet seduces in the dark corners of your brain. Also built on a basement of eerie, a song like “The Urge” crawls with a creep like The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now,” but with sultry feminine vocals that beckons:
“I feel the urge/ It’s stuck within/ deprived of everything that I’ve ever been/ And I don’t know how it’s come to this”
Turn me to stone, sink me in the sea, I’ve fallen victim to this song’s, and this band’s, siren call.
