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Sahara Hotnights offer US release for 1999 debut 7 May 2003
Metal-pop girl quartet Sahara Hotnights started in the northern Swedish town of Robertsfors ten years ago when its members were just entering puberty. By 1999 they’d polished their performance and built a strong enough repertoire to win a deal with major label BMG for the European release of their debut LP, C’mon Let’s Pretend. Since then, their second album, Jennie Bomb, got worldwide release in 2002 (see our review, link below), and Sahara Hotnights staged a US tour last fall along with New York’s The Mooney Suzuki. But the band’s debut never appeared in North America until a few weeks ago when NYC indie Jetset Records stepped up to release it. Less polished and distinctly less American sounding than Jennie Bomb, C’mon Let’s Pretend turns out to be a much more interesting collection. Where Jennie Bomb is adrenaline-soaked and bristling with clever rock hooks, the just-reissued first album has range and vulnerability. There are gentle, poignant ballads, such as Wake Up and That’s What They Do. There are simple, even primitive, songs with very basic drum machine rhythms like Drive Dead Slow. There’s darkness as well as light. And these girls’ innocence, humanity, and youthful confidence stand front and center, not having to compete with all that polish that defines their second LP. Front woman Maria Andersson’s voice on C’mon Let’s Pretend, with all its Jim-Morrison descending-interval embellishments, is just irresistible: child-woman seductiveness spiced with punk rock swagger and, under it all, an organic, vulnerable honesty whose labeling like that or anything else takes away more than it describes. While C’Mon Let’s Pretend doesn’t break new stylistic ground, or provide emotional or philosophical revelations, it’s a very solid rock album with a human identity and more depth, sans ostentation, than any of the pablum the majors tend to shovel our way. For basic rock, Swedish girl style, this is the disc. | Sahara Hotnights | | Jetset Records | | Rockbites review of 2nd LP | | cd from Amazon.com | | top of page | |
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