The Raveonettes

Like Minnesota's own Low, the Raveonettes seem to have spun a career out of the sensibility expressed during the "In Dreams" sequence in Blue Velvet: They reach for everything precious, nostalgic, and haunting in '60s pop, but through a debauched haze of '80s alarm, like the Ronettes singing Velvet Underground lyrics backed by the Jesus and Mary Chain—and then looped into a soulless feedback echo of itself. Like Low, they've recorded a classic indie-rock Christmas song ("The Christmas Song"), perhaps recognizing the ornamental use of cool noise. But last year's impressionistic Lust Lust Lust was a big step forward: a refinement of their menace in beats. The new In and Out of Control turns down the racket to reveal lyrics you might wish you'd missed: Forever stamped on Roman Polanski's news week, "Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)" is an exercise in arty incongruity—all major-chord harmonies and wrath—and should have been destroyed. "Breaking into Cars" blurs its title theme more mysteriously, and is just as catchy. With the Black Angels, Violent Soho, and Daughters of the Sun. 18+.
Mon., Oct. 26, 8 p.m., 2009