Pleasure Forever [ECD]

Although this is their first release, Pleasure Forever have existed since the mid-'90s, stomping around the Bay Area as both the VSS and then SLAVES. On their debut full-length as goth rockers Pleasure Forever, however, the San Francisco trio are more a glammy, gloom'n'doom take on the Doors and David Bowie than yet another incarnation of the shock rock schlock of Marilyn Manson. With piano, guitar, and drums creating some spooky rock atmospherics -- and such eerie song titles as "You and I Were Meant to Drown" and "Meet Me in Eternity" -- the album evokes a collection of funeral dirges and death marches more than a typical rock record. Which seems to be the band's intent: they quote Georges Bataille as saying that "Pleasure is so close to ruinous that we refer to the moment of climax as a 'little death.'" And while Pleasure Forever aren't quite as climactic as they'd probably like to believe, their debut is nonetheless an impressive and passionate introduction to the trio's death rock ambitions. ~ Jimmy Draper