The Raveonettes

Torn between grungy dissonance and sugary pop conceits, the Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo tilted precipitously toward the latter sound on 2005's Pretty in Black, whose bubbly girl-group confections stirred consternation among those expecting more darkness on the edge of Copenhagen. Their new Lust Lust Lust (Vice) is a major correction, with ominous, brooding gusts of troubled beauty dominating. The music is still marbled with pop affectations, but they're leavened with doses of sheer irony, yielding an unsettling, hallucinatory quality. The opening track, "Aly, Walk with Me," is laced with acid-edged noire guitar lines that slice across a melodramatic hip-hop pulse before erupting in clouds of noisy anguish. Pop giddiness reaches a peak on the catchy but still haunting "You Want the Candy." But all the threads of surf guitar and Ronettes vocals teasingly strewn throughout the album only snipe at its grim, dominant image of love doomed from its first lustful ache.
Mon., March 17, 8 p.m., 2008