The Raveonettes - Wishing You A Rave Christmas

The third and final of The Raveonettes' 2008 digital EPs with actual new songs has a Christmas theme, which sort of plays into the feel of the record without changing the band's identity. A bit surprisingly it might be my favorite of the the three, although they're generally pretty close and I don't distinguish them that much. "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is a cover of an old Darlene Love song you might have heard, and it's quite a good one, with a heavy bass beat and eerie synth part giving it its own identity with the band. "Come On Santa" is one of their more upbeat numbers and shows a bit of a different side. "Christmas Ghosts and "Christmas In Cleveland" are back to the more mellow, haunting style, and are perfectly fine in their own right. I downloaded from Amazon so it came with an extra track, "Forever In Your Arms", which as far as I can tell was originally a bonus track on Lust Lust Lust exclusive to Australia, and has nothing to do with Christmas, but ain't half bad. So, will I actually get any full albums at this point? Eh, maybe some time.

The Raveonettes - Sometimes They Drop By

Another bit of MP3 credit from Amazon, another Raveonettes digital-only EP. I didn't like this quite as much as Beauty Dies, but it's another enjoyable four song set from the Danish rock band. The style here is closer to shoegaze, with lots of buzzing and droning as opposed to distinct melodies. The only problem I really have is that I just don't like the song "Blood Red Leis" much. The title track is a pretty engrossing, soothing number, the opener has a lot of energy, and the final song "Vintage Future" is the most like a traditional song, with a nice, old fashioned guitar line carrying it through to the end. This was actually released before the first EP I got, and it's probably just as good an introduction to the duo's style.

The Raveonettes - Beauty Dies

So I ordered a few CDs on Amazon, and they gave me three dollars of digital music credit. I wanted to use it on something that couldn't be bought physically, since that's how I prefer to own my music. One of the things that came up most looking for digital-only EPs was The Raveonettes, who I knew I liked from one song I'd heard, and had released a series of four a couple years ago. I gave the most popular one a shot and it didn't disappoint. There's only four tracks here, but they're all pretty nice. There's heavy bass, some high-pitched twanging guitar, heavy noise and electronic elements, and some interesting, occasionally haunting harmonies from the Danish duo. They both have their own moments to shine, but the band seems at their most interesting when they're singing together and letting a groove or melody last for as long as it can carry itself. The EP is short and sweet, and it has me fairly interested in checking out more of their work.