Album Review: The Blanche Hudson Weekend – Reverence, Severance & Spite
Rising from the ashes of the celebrated noisepop outfit The Manhattan Love Suicides, The Blanche Hudson Weekend were formed in 2009 by ex-Suicides Caroline and Darren. Already in that short time the band, named after Joan Crawford’s character in Robert Aldrich’s splendid ‘Whatever Happened To Baby Jane’, have released three EPs. ‘Reverence, Severance and Spite’ is a collection of tracks taken from those EPs (though not in chronological order) plus a couple of demos and a handful of new songs.
I saw The Blanche Hudson Weekend play their powerful mix of garage rock and jangly guitar pop layered with distortion and echo filters a couple of months ago at a launch for their EP. The gig was superb but having not heard them before I wondered if they’d be able to catch the essense of their stage show on record. Listening to ‘Reverence, Severance and Spite’ I’m pleased to report that yes, they could!
It starts slowly with the dreamy (well, I say dreamy but it’s more of a Lynchian nightmare) ‘Drifting’ featuring only organs and Caroline’s voice. As ‘Dreaming’ finishes ‘Noise and Fury’ explodes into your ears, an excellent homage to the Jesus & Mary Chain with its familiar de-de-der-de-de-de-der chorus. Elsewhere the album varies from girl band garage rock to full on shoegaze distortion, but always underpinned by a solid drum beat. My favourite tracks on the album are the ultra cool ‘Fever Van’ and ‘Let Me Go’. Featuring jangly guitars and Caroline adding a coating of sugar to her vocals it’s probably the closest the band get to being poppy, but still feels a little menacing, a bit like The Primitives’ Tracey Tracey stealing your lunch money in the playground.
‘Reverence, Severance & Spite’ is an excellent album crammed full of great songs. If I had one issue it would be that it’s quite long, with 17 tracks coming in at just over an hour, but there’s no filler here so I to be fair I’m not sure how they’d be able to cut it down! 8/10
Mark Cousens
Out now on Squirrel Records
www.squirrelrecords.co.uk/the-blanche-hudson-weekend
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