Rediscover:
Sahara Hotnights
Kiss and Tell
2004
Rediscover is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that have flown under the radar and now deserve a second look.
The first time I wrote about Kiss and Tell was for my college newspaper; I gave it a “B’ rating (on the A-F scale) with the dry and clinical perspective that only serious young men give anything they profess to care for. Maybe it was preemptive fatigue. RCA Records had done a thorough job plastering the visage and voices of these four young women from Sweden everywhere: the new music display at Tower Records, Little Steven’s Underground Garage and a pair of late night talk show appearances capped a fairly concerted marketing campaign. Our student radio station even had two copies of the album. When the record didn’t seem to live up to the effort spent putting Sahara Hotnights on the map here in America, I pushed back a little too hard. They had changed their sound from fist pumping heavy three chord rock to a toe tapping pop guitar catchiness more in line with the ’80s New Romantic neon scrawl of their moniker. With a puritanical passivity, I thought it was a damping down of their energy and uniqueness from the first two Hotnights releases. Not long after the review was published I found it hard to put down. It was my music of choice for months afterward between 1-4 AM, the hours where the rhythms of each song started to synch up with heartbeat of an exhausted teenager. I’ve been waiting five years to give it a fair shake so this is a big moment for me. I just wish I could get an EKG printout because that might be a more insightful review.
Kiss and Tell has an intelligent and darkly confrontational tone which draws blood early and often. Songs come in the form of questions and accusations which are pushed forward with the type of harsh steadiness you get when you swing a baseball bat at a brick wall; narrow, heavy, memorable, and persistent. “Empty Heart” chastises a soon to be ex-boyfriend that their break up really doesn’t mean that much to him. Hearing Maria Andersson scream in isolation “I swear I can see right through your empty heart” above the rubber ball bouncing of guitars and supporting vocals is a sugary punch in the stomach. “Who Do You Dance For” sympathetically intones support for swirling doubts about being arm candy admitting: “one little victory is all I need, I’m tied to his arm but still I don’t see, what it is that I got that brings him back to me.” And through the “hey hey we’re The Monkees” anthem of “Hot Night Crash” is an exasperated sigh directed at a heated relationship that is going nowhere. The Hotnights traded the car crash proclivities of song like “Alright Alright” and “Drive Dead Slow” to dwell on the evil energies of screwed up relationships just before they flat lined for good. No less wicked, but far more regimented in a bubblegum genre which doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Jennie and Johanna Asphault back up Andersson’s lead vocals and guitar, on bass and rhythm guitar respectively, with the sort of congruity that comes when sisters can anticipate one another. For her part, Josephine Forman lends a slow and deliberate drumming style that makes every note and line stick like rubber cement; hardening around Jennie’s speedy playing and making the band’s backbeat throb mightily. As great as her partners are, Andersson is the star of this record. Badly maligned in the past for getting ahead by dating Hives frontman Pelle Almqvist, she shows a far more interesting range of talents than her ex-beau. The nuance of self doubt and anger she spits out in a second language is a remarkable exhibition of will, focus, and vocal range. About half the songs are chilly and somber like “Keep Calling My Baby” and “Stay/ Stay Away” and Andersson convincingly simulates an overly reflective and consistently busy mind at work while maintaining a neon luminosity and catchiness with every verse.
So why wasn’t their big American push a success? Truthfully, the Hotnights looked painfully green performing these songs live. Which sounds odd since years of exciting concerts got them major label attention in the first place. But not when you consider it was for faster and less disciplined songs. Finding a handle on tenser melodies and wordier lyrics made them sound good but unspectacular on their appearances for Conan O’Brien and Carson Daly; a far cry from their white hot American TV debut on Carson with “Keep Up the Speed” in 2002. A bigger consideration might have been that, for all their hard work, the band finally got their big publicity push when the garage guitar boom was in its 11th hour. Even with an evolution to a more accessible sound, they didn’t beat the buzzer on shifting public tastes. The group’s slow invasion of the U.S. quietly ended quietly even though their reverie at home and throughout Europe managed to stay intact.
The follow-up What If Leaving Is a Loving Thing, released on their independent label Stand By Your Band, wasn’t as interesting as Kiss and Tell but had the clear intention of being performed live more easily. The band looks like they’re have much more fun playing music reminiscent to Billy Idol with stompers like “Visit to Vienna” and “Cheek to Cheek” rather than “Hot Night Crash” in front of an audience. Their star is still bright oversees after the American major label experiment with Sahara Hotnights went bust. From the looks of it, they’ve settled into a happy niche as one of the standard bearers of Swedish pop rock. However, for those of us who once tired of their publicity stills here in the U.S., they’d be a welcome sight for sore eyes.
by Neal Fersko
