Into the Night

The Raveonettes have always been a great singles band. Their noisy, glittering pop nuggets sound best when isolated; sometimes an album's worth of them can be a little too much. Into the Night solves that problem by delivering four of the duo's brightest, poppiest tunes yet. Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo don't waste time with anything dark, emotional, or atmospheric; instead, the songs are like concentrated bursts of distorted AM pop. Each one sounds like the sonic equal of any of their finest moments, though the lack of any dark undertones does lessen their impact a little. Just a tiny little bit, though, and any one of the four tracks here would serve to brighten and improve a Summer of 2012 mixtape, especially "Night Comes Out," which borrows a chunk of melody from Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." ~ Tim Sendra