Rock’s equivalent to the death-and-taxes certainty is that actors who turn to music make a bad fist of it; worse, even, than musicians who take up the thespian arts. Film director Allison Anders (“Grace Of My Heart”) once opined that although she knew countless actors dying to be rock stars, they were just too uncool to pull it off, being far too reliant in their day jobs on directors, cinematographers and screenwriters to know how to cook up their own charisma.
Accordingly, the fact that Juliette Lewis – the teen-in-peril of “Cape Fear” and the damaged-goods tearaway of “Kalifornia” and “Natural Born Killers” – has made rather a good debut album is more than a pleasant surprise. In fact, given the odds built up by the embarrassingly unrocking likes of Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe, it’s frankly startling that she and her Licks sound quite this plausible on record and that the Californian twelve-step truisms on offer (as in the “stay righteous/my power is purity” koans of “Pray For The Band Latoya”) aren’t markedly more tedious than your average Red Hot Chili Peppers offering.
That said, the overwhelming impression of “You’re Speaking My Language” is that – brought to you by a movie star or not – this kind of Patti Smith-via-Hole-via-new-wavey-punk racket is probably best heard live and sweaty. And not just because Juliette – a hoarse-voiced, go-for-it belter of the species Ballsius Rock Chickus and occasionally, as on the sweetly sultry “By The Heat Of Your Light”, a road-raddled Tanya Donnelly - looks great up-close-and-personal in red stilettos. Although one suspects that Licks gig-goers will forever have to force their way past the autograph-book-bearing obsessives that stalk Hollywood names wherever they go.
It’s impossible to guess how we’d feel about this record if the chick in question weren’t already famous. But there are moments here, in 11 songs co-written with her band and ex-Hole member Patty Schemel, that feel as genuine as LA rock ever gets. The stuttering menace of the hand-clapping, whoo-whoo-ing title track riffs all those well-worn thrilling riffs with gleeful conviction, despite being equal parts Patti Smith and, if we’re being honest, late comedienne Gilda Radner’s hilarious Patti Smith take-off, Candy Slice.
A thudding, Grace Slick-righteous “American Boy” takes a slap at US imperialism (“Call it a holy fight/Eat us for dinner/Halliburton”); a catchy, nasty-tempered “Money In My Pocket” thumbs its nose at fashion in namechecking Lynyrd Skynyrd. The album’s standout – and simultaneously most Patti and Courtney-like - is “I Never Got To Tell You What I Wanted To”, its “sisters, sisters” refrain twisting the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” into a grrl-power incantation.
Indeed, given the state of both of Ms Love’s current careers, widow Cobain fans could do worse than turn their attention to Juliette.
