Juliette and the Licks Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
Apparently, one of the golden rules of rock & roll is that the presence of Dave Grohl on drums makes any band better. It makes a great band transcendent -- see not only Nirvana, of course, but also Queens of the Stone Age -- but it can even make OK bands sound pretty decent, as Juliette and the Licks' second album, Four on the Floor, proves (its very title a seeming allusion to Grohl's cameo). Juliette and the Licks were perfectly fine and perfectly forgettable on their debut, but here they seem to have weight, largely due to the granite foundation Grohl lays down. He gives this momentum and magnitude, to which Juliette adds, well, a whole bunch of songs about rocking. If she sounds passingly like Polly Jean Harvey, she's a PJ who just doesn't care about anything deeper than what happened last night and what might happen tonight. Which is totally rock & roll, of course -- right down to her rants about a "Death of a Whore," complete with a machine-gun burst of profanity on the breakdown -- but it's hard not to shake the feeling that Grohl gives an illusion of substance this aggressively shallow music doesn't quite deserve. That said, he does make Four on the Floor rock -- which is good, since an album about rock & roll should at least rock -- and if listened to as background music at a party, it's a good time, since it never slows down and never lets up, so it's the ideal soundtrack for a night of debauchery. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'You're Speaking My Language'
Release Date 5/16/2005
Tracks 12
Label HASSLE
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What The Critics Say
Rock bands led by actors have long been considered a joke by most pop culture fanatics, movie geeks, and record collectors, and usually for good reason: many are quite terrible. But that knee-jerk dismissal of all celebrity rock bands isn't really fair, since it assumes that all these acts are merely vanity acts, and never manages to look beyond the celebrity to actually hear the music. This is a problem that will plague Juliette Lewis and her band, the Licks, just as it plagued Russell Crowe, Kevin Bacon, Jeff Bridges, Keanu Reeves, and any number of actors who have fronted rock bands or released their own albums. If Juliette & the Licks' first album, You're Speaking My Language, is judged on its own merits, it's not a bad record. It's a little bit too derivative, drawing heavily from PJ Harvey, Iggy Pop, and '90s alterna-rock, with traces of '80s new wave, but the band is propulsive and Lewis has some genuine power as vocalist, giving the group direction and a charismatic focal point. Sometimes, her lyrics are a little silly -- whether it's the attacks on Halliburton on "American Boy, Vol. 2" or her contention that "the world's gone crazy/but I've got my friends" on "Money in My Pocket" -- but her spirited performances tend to overshadow these indulgences. While there aren't too many really memorable tunes here -- only the giddy, poppy "Seventh Sign" really demands attention -- the sound is sleek and stylish, and the band rocks harder than you might think, making You're Speaking My Language a surprisingly appealing, promising debut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Like a Bolt of Lightning'
Release Date 9/14/2004
Tracks 6
Label Fiddler
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