Sahara Hotnights - Kiss & Tell

I am not even sure there are enough people who call themselves hardcore Sahara Hotnights fans that I could count on both hands. Luckily, I am proud to call myself one, so I waited in great anticipation for Kiss & Tell to come out. I fell in love with the Swedish, all-female band after their second album Jennie Bomb was released in the US. It had great hooks and solid rock songs with immense energy I had not heard in a long time. I then picked up their first album C’mon Let’s Pretend to see a pop-influenced tour de force of great choruses that were both sing-along, simplistic, but not insulting to the seasoned rock-enthusiast. One of the things I immediately loved about Sahara Hotnights was that they were all female, and although it certainly added to the appeal, they didn’t use it as their “gimmick” to mask other musical unsophistication [cough]The Donnas[cough]. On Kiss & Tell, however, they begin to fall dangerously close to the line separating a great band and great kitsch. They sound more This-is-the-girl-rock-band-playing-at-my-sweet-sixteen than an established band with strong musical skill. Even the titles (the opener “Who Do You Dance For?”) suggest a sort of easy way out. If it is possible, the women seem to have lost the spirit and angst behind the other albums; the tracks sound dangerously similar and half assed. Perhaps they are going for a wider appeal or are jumping on the bandwagon of eighties-redux (i.e., The Killers, Stelllastarr*). As a self-declared hardcore fan, I feel it is my duty to proselytize and convert others to fans. I encourage grabbing a copy of Jennie Bomb first and then sprinkling the tracks of Kiss & Tell randomly into a playlist to ease into it. And then hope that they are on their way to making another, more worthwhile album. [www.saharahotnights.com]