Pleasure Club, a latter-day Roxy Music, are the Next Big
Thing That Never Was, quietly pumping out the kinda
passionate rock music that is sorely missing in most
parts these days. When the band dropped its debut album
Here Comes the Trick in 2002, many rightfully
assumed that Pleasure Club would go national and become
big-time rock 'n' roll stars. The real trick came later
when, after months of touring, the disc was largely
ignored by the sweaty masses, who chose instead to
listen to the White Hypes and company. Two years down
the line and the band is back with a far more varied affair than
Trick — The Fugitive
Kind, which takes its name from a Tennessee
Williams play. The Fugitive Kind is at times
caustic (witness the menacing and paranoid "Cops and
Criminals") and dismally ironic (see "I Ended Up With
You"), but it's always engaging; hell, even the
clunkers on the album ("Crooks" and "You Want Love")
are better than most bands' biggest hit singles! In a
perfect world, "High Five Hit Me" and "Seduction" would
be top-10 chart hits but, alas, we do not live in a
perfect world. Lyrically, the songs move from being
soaked in irony ("I wanted someone who was faithful and
true, I ended up with you...") to being drenched in
angst ("If there's a cause for doing right, I don't
know what it is...") and musically the band moves all
over the board, à la the aforementioned Roxy Music, from
punk to funk to goth. Hell, "On Holy Land" even has
Latin flavor to it! Singer James Hall's voice is
swaggering and smooth, his distinctive croon anchors
the music, which is somewhat hard to pin down. Are
Pleasure Club rock? Soul? Hell if I know — the only
thing I can say for sure is that the band creates music
that is earnest and powerful, music that would sound
corny in anyone else's hands. Somehow Pleasure Club are
able to present straightforward rock music that is
challenging and fun and never dumb. In their hometown of New Orleans, Pleasure
Club can't
even sell out small club shows — I know this
heartbreaking fact because I've been to almost every
gig the band has played in The Big Easy in the past two
years and I haven't gone home from any of those shows
feeling even one ounce of disappointment. There's
really no good goddamned reason why a band this
goddamned good should continue to toil in obscurity, so
do your part and join the Club — pick up The
Fugitive
Kind today and thank me tomorrow.
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