Morningwood – Diamonds & Studs

If you can get past the silly juvenile name, Morningwood isn’t such a bad band. This New York-based band does sound a bit typical alternative-rock, down to the hot booby singer Chantal Claret. Beyond the looks and attitude, I do like that their songs are really catchy and that Claret’s voice is not girlish. I get the feeling that when she sings on their second album Diamonds & Studs, that this isn’t her first rodeo. I think if you love Veruca Salt, you’ll find Morningwood (still can’t help but snicker at their name) to be pretty awesome.

In 2007-2008, they had very heavy promotion for their self-titled debut album courtesy of their record label, Capitol Records… so it was around this timer period where you might have caught the band on any of the late night talk shows. I suppose with Capitol Record sort of gone (they merged/sold to EMI Records), the band is currently signed to VH1’s Records. This isn’t such a bad thing, as I would hazard a guess that VH1 would promote their own music with videos.

Before you break that Diamonds & Studs is “VH1 is muzak” argument, there’s a few ‘adult’y tracks on this album, including several F-word on such songs like “Bitches” and “Bipolar Bear”. I did like it when Claret talks dirty, so I didn’t mind it so much. Younger listeners might want to turn to pop-rock-punk song “Teenage”, which actually made me conjure up images of Avril Lavigne.

It looks like their lead-in single is “Best of Me”, a “is that the best you’ve got” anthem of a song. I think the song pretty much paints a picture of what Morningwood is all about. The music video had a weird slappathon, which made no sense to me (other than that Claret can take what she dish out?). While the song is loud and ballsy, I much prefer their disco-y sort of songs like “Three’s a Crowd” and “How You Know It’s Love”, which I suspect there is a nod to Roxy Music with their line “you’re the drug called love“.

Judging from their live videos on youtube, I can tell you that this band looks amazing live. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re doing much touring in the winter (which I totally understand, who wants to trek out in the cold?). They are playing an art museum in Portland on February 6^th called “Beaux-Arts Costume Ball” with their theme of “Come As You Art”. I checked out the prices, it looks pretty spendy, $100 for tickets at The Portland Art Museum. One can only imagine the type of NPR listeners there, puzzled at Morningwood on stage…

For most of us, not around Portland, Diamonds & Studs is available now for $12 at amazon. Their debut album is even cheaper at $9 (a deal!).

 01/21/2010 02:54:34 ♥ vu () ♥ morningwoodrocks.com ♥ myspace.com/morningwood