"We didn't sell millions of albums, and we didn't become an arena-packing band. I could have predicted that," Sune Rose Wagner wrote in anticipation of In and Out of Control, his fourth proper album with co-Raveonette Sharin Foo. Yeah, we could have predicted that, too. In fact, we expected a lot less from the Raveonettes: After two great records (the debut EP Whip It On, followed by the markedly better full-length Chain Gang of Love), it became fairly clear that these Danes were destined to remain faithful to a singular trick (the overblown Jesus and Mary Chain/ Phil Spector fanaticism; eyeliner), always well-rehearsed and respectfully researched. But by the time their make-or-break mainstream offering Pretty in Black showed up, most interest in their reverb-addled, shooby-doo-wop indulgences had waned. It made waiting a few years for Crystal Stilts pretty easy.
But with their return-to-loud third album Lust Lust Lust, we found a band embracing their failure to launch, reconnecting with (and latching more tightly to) a sound they so lovingly cultured. So you could almost call In and Out of Control a sophomore effort of sorts: "Now I tremble in New York City, the times we had were the best, yeah baby," sings Wagner on "Gone Forever", a fantastically dispiriting, too-old-for-this-shit sequel to Chain Gang's "New York Was Great". Less gorgeously noisy than Lust, Control makes up for all that grand recklessness in its sure-footing and execution. A glance at the track listing might persuade one to think that this affair will prove assuredly more "out of control" than "in" ("Suicide", "D.R.U.G.S.", "Breaking Into Cars"), but most of these songs invert the anticipated and adopt a playfulness that's both disquietingly funny and humbly self-referential.
Single "Last Dance"-- a resplendent dose of dreambeat prom-pop-- perfectly exemplifies the morbid tongue-in-cheek formula that the best tracks on Control subscribe to. Here, we find a character asking an eventual overdose victim to save the titular last dance for them, though it's apparent the inevitable death of the dancer is far less important than the fulfillment of the traditional "Spring Fling" date contract (or more pointedly, simply an ode to teenage narcissism). Whether laying a lover to rest on the interlude "Oh, I Buried You Today" ("It's so hard for me to say sweet words about you," Foo muses adorably) or frankly embracing their outward influences on "Suicide" (assuming that this runaway tale's motto of "lick your lips and fuck suicide" is less about deciding not to off yourself and more about literally giving yourself to no wave), Control's unsettling sense of humor helps categorize the Raveonettes as a weather-tested act that has the good sense to play with the motifs and textures they used to take all too seriously.
This of course brings us to the big water-cooler centerpiece "Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)", an unnervingly direct and plainly stated song about the frighteningly real effects of sexual assault, made all the more shiver-worthy in its saccharine-laced delivery. "Those fuckers stay in your head," Foo chimes, uncomfortably pitched like an innocent line from a long-lost Ronettes tune about being stood-up. It's a debilitatingly chilling, calculatingly emasculating idea that shouldn't work but does, and only provides further insight into how clever and accomplished the Raveonettes can sound when they feel this confident in their own skin.
When things do begin to feel a little too familiar (the dead-eyed twist of "Heart of Stone" and the peppery opener "Bang!" feel dredged from sessions that could very well date back to the very beginning of the band's existence), Control manages to pull clever punches that keep interests piqued. The dramatic disco-pulse of highlight "D.R.U.G.S." or the barefaced sex metaphors that build "Breaking Into Cars" are artful in their ability to circumvent convention just enough to please familiar listeners and still satisfy the songwriters' needier impulses. "[Control is about] not giving a shit what other people think of you and most importantly being mad and angelic," Wagner stated in that same press release. He's dead-on; for that we can certainly be appreciative.
