February 2, 2001

Vegastones : Love Hotel

It sure beats Fred Durst.

7 / 10 Never trust a band who put themselves in cute little pigeonholes - it often indicates a brittle foundation. This lot, for instance, lead us to believe that they are an advocate of 'post-disco thrash punk'. But the two-thirds Antipodean, one-third Bulgarian newcomers soon make nonsense of such a self-proclamation. Instead, on debut album 'Love Hotel', they cook up a kitsch groove that unwittingly reveals a lot of time spent in Beck's Bordello penning Euro-lounge mini-anthems and thinking about sex (shops) a lot.

Forget the artless musings of jumped up, stinking rich, rap-metal fucks in children's baseball caps. This splendidly studied array of curio melodies and heartbeat-friendly rhythms is designed to lower values, to broaden parameters and to spread a little love, if not herpes. The deliciously sleazy 'Porcelain Skin' may aspire to an era that had all the worse dance moves but it does so with a touch of pure class. Even 'Nico' - responsible for the 'thrash punk' bit, by all appearances - is more Hammond organ-heavy '60s
beat pop that's swallowed too
many E numbers.

If you're looking for something that falls between the rickety stools of nu-metal and nu-acoustic, yet doesn't boggle with obscurantist methodology or nauseate with saccharine schmaltz, you could do worse than spend a few nights in with The Vegastones. As Tim Van Der Kuil lazily croons, all Scott Walker-like, on new single 'Drag Queen Eyes', "There's a beautiful angel on the hi-fi way". It sure beats Fred Durst.

Darren Johns

Rate this album

Average rating

Be the first to rate this album

To read all our reviews first - days before they appear online - check out NME magazine, on sale every Wednesday

For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our sister site, NME Video.