Lupine Howl

The Carnivorous Sounds Of …
The exiled rhythm section of Spiritualized comes back with an album of its own, and everyone is curious. Well, don’t get too excited. Although accented by Sean Cook’s magnificent bass work, The Carnivorous falls flat. Lupine Howl sounds at best like a cheap imitation of their former band’s spacier work, at worst like the soundtrack to a teen flick. Cook’s sexual posturing on lead vocals is a drag the whole way through, and the cover art, featuring B-movie-type vixens in various S&M poses, is more dated than it is campy or tasteless. It is an unfortunate fact that money squabbles led to these fellows’ departure from J. Spaceman’s camp, because they made a good backing band.

Unfortunately, the struggle to find an identity on their own, and the lack of any real substance, makes Lupine Howl the decided losers of this war.