THE SUGARS have played alongside THE VON BONDIES and RICHARD HAWLEY and first emerged in 2006 from the Bad Sneakers / Faversham side of the unstoppable Leeds music machine.
And that side means fashion, fun, going out, staying out, getting sweetly distressed and wearing good clothes. It's a pretty attractive set of threads and it fits very handsomely on the musical shoulders squared up for this début album.
1950s US doo wop, acapella and r&b have a huge appeal, and the awe-inspiring distance of at two long generations allows all kinds of nostalgia to titillate the young aesthete. Those beautiful microphones (the Shure Brothers model 55S especially), looking like classic Airstream trailers are just the start.
Unfortunately, remembering, or digging back through the music in a thorough way isn't as promising as it should be. Johnny Guitar Watson, certainly, and some of the best of Dion and The Belmonts, The Cadillacs or The Penguins stand out. But to get a sound that is as urban as Elvis was rural and to get songs that can be heard by ears today as if it was really raving in the 50s THE SUGARS have had to be be properly inventive. A great deal of city doo wop was a lot soppier than woppier and only one track (the slightly dodgy "You Better Go") takes that on.
Fortunately the bulk of this bold as brass album is more aggressive, twangier , bluesier and punkier than the ethnomusicologists might ask for. THE SUGARS aren't New York 50s at all. They play the spirit of urban US teen night-time pop through 2008 wiring diagrams. And that's just as it should be. I don't think anyone goes to indie gigs to shuffle about to the Orioles or The Five Satins. Not really.
"The Curse of teh Sugars" has some of the earlier and rippingest singles like "Monsters" and "Way To My Heart" on here. "Black Friday" is a stand-out opener with a great riff and beautiful balance at speed. Second track "Unnamed Duet" is ambitions and exciting and probably the best thing on the album. Matt's slide guitar opening and the huge riff that follows are stunning. Anna's voice is bang on - right in the strongest part of her register, and sound like she could bite heads off. The roaring, echoing guitar powers on and cymbals splash dementedly all over the shop. A crazed guitar solo stutters into the night air.
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We also have "Heaven Knows", a lascivious blues that uses the contrasting voices of Matt Bolton and Anna Greenway to maximum thrill all round. Matt's is the dominant. convincing tone. Anna has frailties that can can sound seductive, but which the 50s studio bosses might have responded to with shouts for a replacement. "Mama" is a song that doesn't quite work - maybe it has too many words sitting on lines that should be shorter and punchier, or maybe Anna just has to try too hard to reach too many awkward notes. In the same way her bass playing in exposed sections of "Way To My Heart" isn't quite crisp enough to be convincing. She's much more at home and much more convincing singing on "Monsters" and (especially) on the very tight harmonies and responses in "Black Friday".
So this isn't a perfect album, by any means. But it has sensations, fun, style (and a trumpet part on "Fairy Tale") - which is pretty much what the 50s had to offer the city dwellers of interracial America. With produciton by Will Jackson (PIGEON DETECTIVES, THE CRIBS) the whole package is well placed for a decent flurry of attention.
www.myspace.com/thesugars
www.badsneakers.co.uk
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