Rhyming "fuck" with "suck" is on the lyrical dealbreaker list next to "fire/pyre", "tonight/right" and "fly/high/sky". Nevertheless, there's Pink Grease's Rory Lewarne yowling just such a couplet over "The Nasty Show"'s throbbing glitz. Lewarne hoots and hotfoots his way through the red-lit alleys and beaded curtains of This Is for Real-- which turns out to really not be-- dropping lines like, "I want your fingers inside this song," and suggesting ways to spend the day horizontal as his five mates fluff every inch of the strutty rawk and preening glam their seemingly petri dish-activated name suggests. Take a whiff of their pant leg, baby.
This Is for Real has its moments, but it's not the sex-punk triumph these Sheffield-based narcissistic debaucherists seem to believe it is. It wants to be Phoebe Cates popping tops to The Cars, but it's more like the pool house and oily Mike Damone. Throughout the album, the guitars and Lewarne's leering yelp are supported by sax and synth. And yet, for a band with a guy devoted to "machines and inventions," there's very little exploration of sonic possibility. "Emotional Retard" and "Fever" are dirty rock stompers, the former layering in florescent keys for generic effect; the latter highlighting a squawking saxophone that sounds sampled from INXS.
Indeed, glammy and/or punkish rock augmented with smirking electronics just doesn't get the sex trade moving in 2004-- that sound's been done in more ways than one. Which is why, after a while, Pink Grease's come-on just starts to sound superficial. Lewarne must believe that the number of F-bombs dropped corresponds directly to the music's randy qualities. And maybe it does, kind of. "Superfool" sufficiently grits up new wave, and even gets away with the old breathless orgasm sample. "Pink G.R.EASE", too, ties all the elements together-- kicky glam rockin', slutty horn blown', vintage key-tar playin', and high-pitched lyrical struttin' all gel in perfect R-rated harmony, to make Elton John get thoughts about beddin' down with Jon Spencer. And there's no way opener "Remember Forever" isn't an in-the-red anthem for the Urban Outfitters elite. Its verses' clangy guitars and unstoppable shadoobies might never go out of style.
Still, This Is For Real just doesn't resonate. Pink Grease's brash swagger is pretty admirable-- they believe in their freaky-deaky awesomeness so fervently that it's fleetingly addicting. But sex has gotten riskier since the 1970s. In fact, its attendant hoops can make the whole bit more irritating than exciting. This is probably why so many groups, the Grease included, look to the bowls of pills and freedom of the swingin' Me Decade-- getting rocks off in real time is tougher than unhooking a third-form bra. But that it's so difficult means we can't keep reveling emptily in the past. We need new aphrodisiacs, and new methods for the new makeout mores.
Some of the cats Pink Grease thank in their liners have the right idea: Liars aren't sexy, but there's a danger in their music that makes it attractive; Ladytron's machine music makes androids dream of electric sheep, and humans in angular haircuts hook up like bunnies; even Spencer, amidst his infamous posing, conjures some hot and bothered kinetics. Pink Grease's initial EPs and this resulting full-length have flashed potential, but finding the elusive rock G-spot is more difficult than pushing pulsing synthesizers into tweezed gutter-punk rhythms and yelling about sexin' over its surface. So, in the end, Pink Grease offer what amounts to a quickie-- not nearly enough sexual energy to fuel an entire party. Like Phoebe Cates climbing out of the pool, their reality is more an illusion.
