Having piqued the interest of Jack White while handing out demos at a Dead Weather show in Detroit, Olivia Jean was quickly initiated into the Third Man Records family. She became the frontwoman of garage rockers The Black Belles, and has backed an assortment of Third Man Records signings, such as Karen Elson and Wanda Jackson. Now, armed with her multi-instrumental talent and seeming desire to inject 60s-inflected vocals onto a 21st century album, Jean presents us with Bathtub Love Killings.
The album's name is inspired by the crimes of the English serial killer George Joseph Smith, and was created with Jack White in the producer's chair. Let's get this out of the way now: Jack White's influence is inevitable. His signature guitar licks are all over "Cat Fight", while the thrill of "December" bears more than a passing resemblance to some of his previous work. White's input is definitely an impressive addition, and blends well with Jean's predilection for creating songs that sound like they could still resonate if you dusted off this vinyl record years from now.
Outside of this, Jean's songs are catchy and refreshingly bizarre. Beginning with the sound of the song being played through an old gramophone, "Haunt Me" is a cleverly crafted mix of folksy acoustic guitars, twinkling piano keys and layered vocals. Jean has a knack for writing songs that have a cinematic and vintage sound. In the 60s swagger of "Green Honeycreeper" Jean elicits a southern drawl during the chorus that's as catchy as the alphabet. When she sneakily intones "Put a blindfold over my eyes/ But all along I/ I can see just fine" in a swirl of guitar squalls and a pounding bass it becomes more than your average pop croon. There's a tumult of crashing guitar riffs that immediately kick the song into this century but still captures the enduring strut of 60s girl group pop that flickers throughout Bathtub Love Killings.
Taking you from a jazz bar to a courthouse to the inner recesses of the mind of a jilted lover, Bathtub Love Killings wields an interesting variety of guises that aren't immune to faltering. Opportunities to light a spark in a song are missed in a fair chunk of this LP. The expectation of a bruising stomp or a pulsing crescendo goes unfulfilled on the jaunty ragtag of "Merry Widow" or the fiddles-and-all bombast of "Deadly Hex", sounding like a lost song from the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack. It's a quirky and bold record, that makes for an intriguing listen. The songs can sometimes sound too abrupt and unfinished, but Bathtub Love Killings still has its place as a curiously eccentric embrace of vintage girl groups heightened with a visceral guitar twang.
