ALBUM REVIEW: The Loveless – Meet The Loveless (Cadiz Music)
With more than 30 million album sales to his name, Marc Almond is at the stage of his career where he can damned well do what he wants.
What he wants right now is to revisit the roots of his lifelong love affair with music by releasing a new album with his garage rock band.
Almond – best known as the voice of ’80s synth-pop duo Soft Cell – formed The Loveless with his long-term guitarist/sideman Neal X (formerly of Sigue Sigue Sputnik) back in 2020.
The pair recruited punk icon Iggy Pop’s rhythm section, Ben Ellis (bass) and Mat Hector (drums), plus keyboard player James Beaumont, and this is a compilation of their two self-released albums from 2020 and 2022.
Drawing material from Almond’s back catalogue, it also pays dues to influences like T. Rex, Iggy, Alice Cooper and David Bowie, among others.
It’s a delicious slice of ’60s R&B and garage mixed with ’70s rock, and Almond’s voice sounds as good as ever at the ripe old age of 66.
Things kick off with Wild In The Streets, an Almond/X original which comes tearing out of the speakers like a hurricane. It’s followed by a cover of The Yardbirds’ Putty In Your Hands, so faithful it sounds like their own.
One of the highlights is Pills, featuring original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock. It’s a harmonica-soaked version of the 1961 Bo Diddley classic, with a deliciously sleazy riff.
The moody I’m Not Like Everybody Else sounds like an Almond composition from his solo years, and if it sounds familiar that’s because it was written by Ray Davies and was the B-side of the Kinks smash hit Sunny Afternoon.
There’s a couple of songs I’d not heard before: Take A Heart was first released by the Boys Blue in 1965, with the best known version by mods The Sorrows, while Dark Side, a slower number showcasing Almond’s velvet-like croon, was first released by US garage rockers The Shadows of Knight (who covered Them’s Gloria).
There’s another Almond/X original in Nothing At All, which sounds like the Rolling Stones, while Hot Hard & Ready by LA’s leather-clad underground queer rockers Smokey finds Almond in delightfully sleazy mode as he sings “I’ve got a ton of steel between my legs and I’m hot hard and ready.”
Elsewhere, there’s a cover of Alice Cooper’s minor 1971 hit Under My Wheels, and The Loveless hark back to the ’60s again on You’re Gonna Miss Me by psychedelic US rockers the 13th Floor Elevators, .
There’s more ’60s fever on a banging version of Night Time by The Strangeloves, a slice of sax-powered soul on Freddie Scott’s I’ll Be Gone, and more psych-rock on Shape Of Things To Come (previously covered by the likes of Slade, Ramones and Spear of Destiny!), which suits Almond’s voice to a tee.
You could call The Loveless a covers band, as much of their material was originally by other people, but this is an enormously enjoyable album, well worth your time and money. 8/10.
