Black Lipstick

One gets the impression that, around 2001, an international fiat was declared obliging all new bands to feature at least one Velvet Underground-influenced track per album. On Sincerely, Black Lipstick, Black Lipstick has taken this to its logical conclusion releasing an album full of songs that could have been written by Lou Reed and co. More spectacularly, they’ve managed to make it sound good. There’s that unmistakably dense instrumentation conflated with soporific, off-pitch vocals (perfectly paced by singer Phillip Niemeyer). But the crux of the success lies in the lyrics — unexaggerated anecdotes of drugs and inner-city dynamics that inoffensively mimic early Reed.