Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves - 'Drive It Like You Stole It' (12XU)
4/5
By: Austin Louis Ray
Sally Crewe really likes cars.
Without even listening to her debut album, 'Drive It Like You Stole It', this much is obvious. The LP's suggestive name and song-titles such as '0-60', 'Got A Car, Got A Job' and the title-track, reveal Crewe is down with automobiles, alright. That's not even taking into account the lyrical allusions. Yet, besides, one woman's obsession with four-wheeled machines is unimportant if the music's not worthy.
So, what about that music? Well, for one - and in short - it is worthy. Rewardingly, Crewe brandishes a distinctive guitar sound: one not quite distorted, but not too clean. It makes for a mainstay accompaniment to producing effective, quick pop songs, as per the usual on 'Drive It Like You Stole It', where one third of the album's twelve tracks doesn't even top the two-minute mark, and none go past three minutes. As must be expected then, the album is a rapid affair, the dozen songs not even topping twenty-seven minutes in all. But back to the guitar sound. Combined with Crewe's vocals that walk the line between edgy and sweet without sounding stereotypically feminine, the overall sound comes off sounding like a female version of fellow, acclaimed label-mates Spoon...
... Spoon, huh? Funny you mention it, because half of the Texas fourpiece is featured throughout the work; (Crewe's backing band, The Sudden Moves, is actually comprised of Spoon's frontman Britt Daniel - credited for bass, backing vocals, piano, keyboards, guitars and kalimba - and Spoon's drummer, Jim Eno, doing what his does best - manning the kit, and tambourine.) The boys even get a nod from Crewe on the aforementioned 'Got A Car, Got A Job', when she sings, 'I've been thinkin' about leaving London/I got friends in Austin that I know...' Daniel can then be heard, in the background, hollering, 'All right', presumably, in affirmation of Crewe's stateside connections.
All musical friendships aside, Crewe's first release plays out as just under a half hour's worth of refreshingly stand-alone rock 'n' roll; from the swingin' mood and manic piano of 'Everything To Lose', to the melancholy-tinged 'Forget It', it almost seems that whatever Crewe and Co. endeavor, they can't go wrong. However, that's not totally the case. 'DILYSI' occasionally suffers from repetition. A speedy scan of the first handful of tracks, while only listening to the first few seconds of each, will reveal Crewe's riffs aren't always boldly fresh. But for the most part, she manages to get by this infrequent setback by crafting a quality pop song amidst nearly every piece.
Closing out the album, the piano-led 'Lying About My Age' further exemplifies that Crewe has more territory to cover than guitar-based, two-minute tunes. Perhaps her next album will explore themes such as this even further.
After all, there's more to this world than cars.
Artists in this article: Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves
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