Going Straight – Candy Darling (single) reviewed by Dave Franklin

After the electro-fuzzed onslaught of Money, follow up single Going Straight shows a different side of the band, one of restraint and brooding expectation. Here a more spacious musical environment is framed by Mary Chain style tribal beats, slowly burning up towards a razor wire guitar crescendo. Again the references are the confrontational vibe of Patti Smith mixed with the skuzzy, reverb drenched end of New Wave. But forget the skinny-tie, power pop of early eighties London, this is the sound you would find wafting out of Max’s Kansas City made by Bowery chancers and downtown hustlers, punks in the true sense of the word. It is edgy and atmospheric, dangerous and charged with tense ambiguity. It is the sound track to a world inhabited by William Burroughs, The Warhol entourage (hence the bands titular reference) The Heartbreakers, Suicide and Television.

The flip side, Waves, sees the band in more familiar musical territory. No less dark and snarling but also delivered with vocal anguish against a backdrop of smashed guitars and throbbing electronic beats, sudden dynamic drops and musical angst. Again, Candy Darling doing what they do best and proving that referencing past musical glories can be so much more than merely ripping off the odd Beatles or Zeppelin riff.