Warren Suicide – Warren Suicide

It’s amazing the mileage folk can get out of an album. For me, I never tire of mining the riches of John Inman’s I’m Free masterpiece, or if I want to be truly avant-garded out of this world, it would have to be Mickey Mouse’s Dancercise. Similarly, Primal Scream‘s Extrmntr has spawned a whole career of civil disobedients such as Kasabian, and is now mined to extinction of the murkier than thou electroclash-isms by Warren Suicide.

Opening with the statement of intent, “Hello my name is Warren Suicide. I want to take you on a night ride” doesn’t mince its words. The music squeezed within is similarly upfront and uncomplicated. We have low-slung excursions into the dark world of sleazed-up electronica, whispered vocals grating against scuzzed up tweaks and dirty beats, and with just a whiff of melody holding the corset of sound together. Too slight to be truly menacing, but laced with slabs of melody and building loops that snag like audio barbed wire.

Warren Suicide is a trio of Berlin-based electro-punk terrorists who just aren’t very terrifying. Featuring Lucki on main vocal duties (all insinuated sleaze and menace), Nackt (guitar/electronica stylings) and Cherie (imagery and backing vocals it seems), their’s is a mixture of comic book visuals set to dark, brooding electro that crosses boundaries from dance to goth and rock.

Occasionally veering on the po-faced pretension of performance art, this is an album (just seven tracks and 26 meagre minutes) that manages to outstay its welcome by sheer lack of variation and monotony.

Exceptions to the rule come in the shape of The Woman Just Stood There, which tells the cheery tale of Warren throwing himself off a ship to join a fellow drowner. Set to a bluesy disturbingly funny carnival revolver exploding, there is some ‘sturm and drang’ guitar to finish. It’s hypnotic and to the point and it finally delivers on the hyped promise of a Fischerspooner sound.

Pervy images are conjured up on the following Twelve, which places Cherie’s schoolgirl coo to the effect-mashed Warren coming on like a sexed-up Jello Biafra.

The effect is lost over the course of this meagre mini-album, as its grinding sleaze wears pitifully thin and the entertainment to be had is similarly anorexic. Black Planet and Song For Warren’s Lover are indicative of this slack approach that pollutes the second half of the album, dragging its heels through a mire of goth cliches in an attempt to sound clever and ironic, but just sounds like Depeche Mode arsing about.