Auf De Maur Making Waves! Album Review
It’s nothing to do with luck that Melissa Auf De Maur has been a permanent fixture in terrific rock bands for the past five or six years now. With accolades like Hole and The Smashing Pumkins under her belt it’s easy to see her rock peers hold her in high esteem. There’s a very good reason for this, and that is because the girl has talent. Simple. While her erstwhile band mates struggle with their respective solo efforts, Melissa has effortlessly created an album full of lush dynamics, thick guitars and catchy choruses. Applaud one and all...for here is one of the best rock albums of the past twelve months. Like the freakish sister of QOTSA Auf De Maur is not flawless but it is flawed in the right way. At the last count I started the album at number two and stopped it at number nine (leaving four fillers, pretty good ones though). I seem to recall Richard Ashcroft saying that very few bands have any clue how to make a sonically heavy album. Certain moments on Auf De Maur sound like they were recorded through a vat of soft hot toffee, and needless to say are delightfully sinful. Standout track I’ll Be Anything You Want screams playful sexiness; the album feels like it has been written by a girl who’s loving her life and taking nothing too seriously. Real A Lie rolls like a clap of thunder and with an opening line like ‘so free to so fuck so aroused’, who can argue with the approach. Closing track I Need I Want I Will has a distinctively QOTSA air about it, whilst it fires a cacophony of futuristic synth stabs at us as a parting gesture. This album swings harmoniously between a slow comfortable screw and a faceless terrorist. Wonderful stuff.
DP - Jan '04 |
DFA Records: Holiday Mix 2005
DFA Records: Holiday Mix 2005
