The challenges for a band that’s repertoire consists entirely of cover songs is twofold. As a novelty, can they keep the gag running for the length of an album (or in this case through their 3rd album)? Then, once the novelty wears off, as it inevitably does, does the music hold its own and still engage the listener enough to come back again and again? To add to the challenge, Nouvelle Vague bring in a dozen different vocalists to perform their takes on these classics. This could easily be a recipe for disaster. Much to my surprise and pleasure Nouvelle Vague’s 3 manages to come through over and over again. The touch points are too numerous to count; lounge, bossa nova, folk, tropicália, country, and on and on.
Let’s look at some of the highlights (and one low-light):
• "Master and Servant" - takes the famously dark and gothic Depeche Mode study on sado-masochistic sex and turns it into a playful come-on. Martin L. Gore’s vocal accompaniment serves to maintain the requisite sexiness of the original. As a spaghetti western tune, complete with Jew’s harp, Master and Servant is a standout track.
• "Blister in the Sun" - gets the bossa nova treatment and makes the Violent Femmes most overplayed indie-rock classic almost bearable in its schmaltziness.
• "Road to Nowhere" - strips away David Byrne’s hyperactive tics and leaves behind a straight-up acoustic rending of this Talking Heads classic and neatly walks the line between folk and country.
• "All my Colours" -could easily be classic Leonard Cohen. An aged and graveled Ian McCulloch’s guest vocals punctuate this reinterpretation of the Echo and the Bunnymen song.
• "Heaven" - is a fairly straightforward acoustic interpretation of the Psychedelic Furs original but is transformed into a wee-hours chillout song that would feel right at home on a Beth Orton record.
• "Metal" - is re-imagined as a spritely tropicália song, breathing new life and emotion into Gary Numan’s antiseptic post-punk original.
• "Ca Plane Pour Moi" - retains the punk-rock aesthetic of Plastic Bertrand’s original but gets further amped up in this ska-punk rendering.
• "Our Lips are Sealed" - is best known as the opening track to the Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat. This version is instead a cousin to Fun Boy Three’s original, complete with guest vocals from Terry Hall. Performed as a gorgeous folk duet, all of the franticness of the popular version is stripped away, leaving tender love song.
• "God Save the Queen" - begins with acoustic tinkling and, of all things, whistling. Where the Sex Pistols’ ori
ginal was a call to arms dripping with bile and disgust, this version is apocalyptic in its depression and resignation; the song you would play just before taking a handful of pills, filling the bathtub and slicing your wrists.
• "So Lonely" - unfortunately ends the album on a low note. This plodding version stumbles along, never locking into the groove of one of the Police’s best songs.
--George Dow [October 27, 2009]
