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Rock It To The Moon could easily be the title of some stoned-out stoner-rock sludge-fest, but Electrelane leave the ballast of bell-bottoms and fuzzy facial hair to unwashed retro-kit hipsters. The Brighton-based quartet claims a set of distinctly feminist inspirations; their longplayer is dedicated to some of my own heroes (Virginia Woolf, Kathleen Hanna), plus some other unlikely inspirational sisters (Suzi Quatro, Joan Jett, Joan Armatrading). With the overwhelming drone of a Farfisa organ liberally laid over their driven rock-trio rhythms, Electrelane drive their garage-band outta the garage and out inta space with a focused, kraut-like essence whose non-reverent, non-fuzzed tones are free of the lingering specter of drugs (whose smell often never washes out of the threads of other combos turning a similar instrumentalist trick). Not taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, Electrelane instantly endear themselves to a pragmatism oft lost in the space/spaced-out oeuvre; their own label, Let's Rock, and their Ladyfest affiliations underline an alignment with such practicality. But their grand-scale exercises in massive contrasts and wrung-out rhythms are hardly bland or austere as a result, their sizeable "film music" desires even filled with the remnants of musical influence from such stylish sources as old Italian soundtracks and dug-out Swedish psych-rock. And like the most soundtrackist soundtrack, Rock It to the Moon covers the emotional and tonal spectrum, from incidentalist atmospherics to thumped-out exultation. But it tends to sound best when Electrelane lay it all down; cuts like "Blue Straggler" capture a rhythmic forward momentum whose progressive prog-rock motion seems charged by a little red engine longing for the light of la luna.
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