She Wants Revenge - This Is Forever Review
by Dan MacIntosh
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It's hard to get a good feel for what She Wants Revenge is trying to do with This Is Forever. Its Joy Division vocals and minor key melodies make you think Gothic rock. But these simple love songs also come off like slowed down The Human League works; a long way from Bauhaus-ville. The group ends up sounding like a dark pop band with grand ambitions it can never reach.
Adding to this duo's troubles, predictable lyrics are consistently placed within leaden rock grooves. If Justin Warfield and Adam "Adam 12" Bravin are former DJs, why are their grooves so doggone drab? These songs aren't sad enough to cry to, yet they're never nearly funky enough to get you out on a dance floor. This leaves them in a muddy middle ground where nobody wants to stand.
Listeners may find themselves looking for something, anything, to break the utter aural monotony. For instance, the acoustic piano of "It's Just Begun" is a breath of fresh air, like a splash of color on an otherwise all black canvas. Songs like "This Is The End" at least feature surf-y guitar work. This old school guitar element would be even better if it were used throughout these songs, rather than just in their intros.
There are other bands with equal Joy Division affections, like Editors and Interpol. But while these acts' vocals are almost interchangeable with She Wants Revenge, these groups at least write compelling songs with beats that vary much more widely from song to song.
One song, "She Will Always Be A Broken Girl", is every song on this disc. That's because all the girls on this work are tragic figures, like doomed dames in some modern day film noir. Elsewhere, "Checking Out" tells the story of a nice girl who gets mixed up with a mean mistreating man. And so it goes.
Ironically, the title This Is Forever is like a put down. With so much sameness from song to song, these 13 dragging songs seem to go on for an eternity. And that's too bad because I'm usually a sucker for any group with even the slightest similarity to Joy Division; I like a lot of what Editors and Interpol do. But it just goes to show you that, even with all the right elements, it's still possible to fail. And This Is Forever is a resounding dud.
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She Wants Revenge - This Is Forever
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