At first, it sounds just perfect. A sullen beat bashed out on a cardboard box. A tambourine rattled with precisely the right degree of ennui. Hints of torn clothes and scarred souls, a sleazy adolescence of sex and stimulants with a string of pale narcissists in a variety of darkened basements. An electric guitar, feeding back, just so.
Oh yes, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have definitely done their moody indie boy homework. Everything from the name (taken from the classic outsider movie The Wild One) to the look (black leather, bad hair day) and style (The Jesus And Velvet Spiritualized Three go busking, essentially) comes with "received wisdom declares this to be approved" stamped on it. You can almost hear Jim Reid's accountant turning in his grave.
And it's a measure of the source material's potency that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have been embraced with such hysteria. At their peak, each of the bands the, ahem, Motorcycle Club aspire to aping embodied the charged nihilism of rock'n'roll down to the last bottomless pupil and hollow cheekbone. But somewhere between reverence and pastiche, probably when the trio first huddled around 'Automatic' with their notebooks rather than 'Psychocandy', something went missing.
Either they've been taking too much heroin or not enough, but 'Black Rebel Motorcycle Club' is as limp as a soggy spliff the ragged morning after. The band hit a mid paced groove with opener 'Love Burns', a surprisingly acoustic strum accompanied by few mumbled cliches, and stay there for the following ten songs. While Jim Reid drove his motorbike into a tree, his head dripping into his leather boots, on his debut, the Club chug along at a steady 35 mph, never once threatening to show any excitement, originality or imagination.
Just try picking through this lot for cheap thrills. 'Red Eyes And Tears' sounds like any number of fourth rate also rans (The Rose Of Avalanche, The Bolshoi), with good reason. 'Whatever Happened To My Rock'N'Roll (Punk Song)' is a Velvets cover band playing Oasis' 'Rock'N'Roll Star', which is less fun than it sounds. 'White Palms' plods and meanders. 'Spread Your Love' sounds like the Dandy Warhols at their most spineless, sprawled on the sofa when you're itching for some action. 'Salvation' has its tongue so far up Jason Pierce's record collection it's embarrassing. Only 'As Sure As The Sun' shows the requisite strung-out bite and hunger.
Possibly the best thing you can say about this album is that hopefully it will inspire some real noise loving rebels to plug into the coolest iconography and tradition on the block. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have neither the passion or the inspiration to be anything other than a fleeting stopgap, and you can't help feeling that this album should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act. You come expecting howling cacophony torn from the hearts of rushing misanthropes and end up with a grey cardigan and a cold cup of tea.
