LES BONDAGE (Adios Miss Bordello) LP
Hailing from Italy, LES BONDAGE try desperately to be the new New York Dolls, but this undertaking results not to be completely smooth and successful. In terms of craft, they do everything right and yet, despite this, 'Adios Miss Bordello' leaves much to be desired. On the one hand it is missing the cynical attitude and street dirt of the Dolls. Overall 'Adios Miss Bordello' sounds too tame and lacks any bite, and after a certain time I am nerved of the intrusive party atmosphere of this album. Of course, that was also a part of the New York Dolls, but not to the extent like here.
Aggravating this situation, LES BONDAGE do not manage to set their own course. There are so many other bands around in the same field, thus making it so enormously important to develop an own identity by means of very good songs that remain in memory. Otherwise, you're only one among many. But maybe LES BONDAGE just want to have fun and do not care for such things, which of course is absolutely ok. If so, I would not alter my view. However, there is one song, which has made a positive impression on me, and this is 'Higher Baby'. Suddenly a funky Eddie Hazel-like riff appears and is accompanied by a keyboard that comes along like a Hammond organ. Nice! It sounds as if a completely different band had played that tune (with the exception of the chorus). Good to know that it can be done differently.
'I Missed The Bus' and 'To The End' are songs which follow the tracks of Social Distortion with little success, but otherwise LES BONDAGE hang on to their idols from New York. More points are lost for the awful cover version of 'The Letter', originally recorded by The Box Tops in 1967. This is such a gorgeous tune, but LES BONDAGE sucked the life out of it. Enough said, I think Go Down Records has released much better albums in 2012 than 'Adios Miss Bordello'. This is why I have to say: Adios LES BONDAGE.
(KK)