Posted on: November 18, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

She Wants Revenge – This Is Forever / 2007 Universal / 13 Tracks / http://www.shewantsrevenge.com / http://www.universalrepublic.com /

You know, I don’t remember She Wants Revenge charting in 2005 and 2006, and apparently they did for “Tear You Apart” and “These Things”, hitting #5 and #22 on the U.S. Modern Rock charts. “True Romance” is one of the singles off of the track, and it shows She Wants Romance as an act that is tremendously influenced by the style present during the middle to late eighties. The band creates a rock style that has much more in common with Depeche Mode and New Order than Godsmack and Creed.

What allows She Wants Revenge to work in the current period is their linkage of the new romantic sound with a much more current vibe. A track like “First, Love” shows that She Wants Revenge is the more refined and evolved form of acts like Deadsy. “Written In Blood” gives She Wants Revenge a Killers-like sound, but the composition of the band during this track provides a little more edge than The Killers ever have. It is during a track like “What I Want” that the band most strongly correlates with The Killers; this sound is linked together with the work of Bauhaus during songs like “It’s Just Begun”. While it is true that during much of the disc that She Wants Revenge is able to marry the current with older styles of music, there are moments where the band does not attract a current audience.

This is evidenced during “She Will Always Be A Broken Girl”. The song is strong on its own merit, but the band does not do anything to make the youth of today beholden to the track. The driving beats of “Checking Out”, coupled with the brooding bass is where the band needs to go with subsequent tracks. This current, Disturbed-like sound is linked together with the vocals, which again approach that of Peter Murphy. The style is great for a retro act, and individuals that have been into goth music will find something that they can easily fall in love with. The band flirts with a more current style at points during the entirety of “This Is Forever”, but the lack of continued dedication to that ideal is what makes the disc much less salient to those listening in that are fans of the later styles. The retro thing can work, but only if the act makes each composition into something that matters in this day and age.

Top Tracks: Written In Blood, Checking Out

Rating: 5.8/10

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