Girl Brothers redux
Many songs on Luscious Jackson’s new album Electric Honey evoke two names: Wendy and Lisa.
“Alien Lover”? Check out “Rainbow Lake” from Wendy and Lisa’s Eroica. “Sexy Hypnotist”? Check out the chorus of “Strung Out,” also from Eroica.
On “Gypsy” Gabrielle Glaser sounds a lot like Lisa Coleman. On “Summer Daze,” she sounds like Wendy Melvoin. Put a few more effects of Glaser’s guitar, and she plays like Melvoin too.
Is that a bad thing? Of course not.
In fact, Electric Honey is the album Wendy and Lisa should have recorded in the eight-year gap between Eroica and 1998’s Girl Bros.. Of course, the former Revolutionaries didn’t record it — that honor goes to Luscious Jackson.
Not all of Luscious Jackson’s new platter sounds reminiscent of the Girl Brothers. “Nervous Breakthrough” has a nice, old fashioned disco beat. “Christine” dabbles in some drum ‘n’ bass. “Fantastic Fabulous” is the band’s ode to Blondie, complete with the requisite appearance by Debbie Harry.
The most potentially interesting pairing — Emmylou Harris and the Jackson women on “Country’s A Callin'” — turns out less than the sum of its parts. In other words, where the heck is Emmylou in the mix?
Guess we’ll just have to wait for Western Wall to hear what an Emmylou/Luscious Jackson collab sounds like.