Pleasure Forever - Alter

After being introduced to Pleasure Forever through their self-titled album, I had them penned as a hedonistic, decadent band, whose sinister members lurk around in the night crafting drunken, cabaret styled 60's-pop epics. While Alter doesn't put them too far off from that idea, for better or worse, it kicks the debauchery up a notch. The set opens with "White Mare," and as the sound slowly clears it's as if you're descending the steps of cavernous basement for a night of psychedelic pleasure. The song then kicks into a 70's rock rumble as Andrew Rothbard's bluesy, distorted vocals cut into the mix. "Czarnia" treads similar ground for the band, with its bar room piano shuffle and backbeat. While, "Aeon Flame" suggests The Doors, but with a bit more bounce -- less whiskey, more wine. Yet, as the album continues Pleasure Forever begin to squander the best parts of their own songs: "Draws an 8" hides the first truly haunting piano melody of the album behind a less-enchanting distorted guitar, "Rider's Roost" is lost to the vocal distortion covering Rothbard's vocals on every song, and the closer, "Gideon & Goliath," leaves something to be desired. Nevertheless, it's best not to get hung up on the fourth of the album that doesn't match to the rest. The ghostly waltz, "Hymn Harmonia," is first song on the album the band displays their ability to truly play off each other. With its many starts and stops throughout the verses, and the rising choruses wrapped around off-kilter melodies, the song shows what makes this band unique. "Tempest II" is a definite change of pace, as it's half light-hearted, bar room scuffle and half bar mitzvah dance-a-thon. "This is the Zodiac Speaking" is another captivating 3/4 adventure, with its driving choruses and ethereal interlude. Though, perhaps the best cut, "Axis Exalt," features a nice playoff between the guitar and piano. Throughout this song Rothbard voices his most alluring refrains, and it's here that band, as musicians, push their own boundaries the most. There's something ominous about this band. Perhaps it's the line from their biography that states: "Pleasure Forever is a declaration of will; an incantation of transcendence; a celebration of human desire and the evisceration of excess." Or, perhaps it's that Alter just happened to be Sub Pop's 666th release. Any way you figure it, you probably haven't heard a band like Pleasure Forever. [www.subpop.com]