By Kathryn Pinto
From the opening notes, Le Sheik Rhat begins with a retro sound that blows a kiss to surf rock and rockabilly. Even the titular Rhat on the cover art is a greaser with his motorcycle jacket, black leather shoes and Lucky Strikes. The sound is part Sam Phillips at Sun Records, and even a bit Andy Williams/Henry Mancini in the vein of “Moon River.” There’s a little of Blue Hawaii in there as well and there's an obvious nod to Ronettes-era Phil Spector "Dum-dah dum. Dum-dah dum." [tambourine] on songs like "Grindin'." Really it sounds like a none of these, more like a record by someone you’d never heard of from the early 1960's, pulled from the back of a milk crate of LP's inherited from your impossibly cool, but slightly scary, uncle.
The production on this EP is spare and open, sometimes a single guitar line breathing and expanding in a song, next a vocal part coming in, drums stripped down to their most essential. There is tension in the arrangements, restraint and breathing room. It's a suspension bridge rather than a stone castle of layered tracks. Listening to this minimalist production it's not surprising to learn that the band hails from the Inland Empire. A listener can almost hear the lonely beauty of a desert highway on songs like "Santa Ana."
Lyrically the tracks range from songs about a "rowdy little ruffian" hoodlum rat, to more typical boy-meets-girl fare. The musicianship on the record is excellent. Frontman Cameron Thorne sings, velvety voiced, expertise and control. Naive Thieves are not alone in creating music that looks back stylistically as much as it looks forward (see Dum Dum Girls, Cults, The Californian). Their grasp of the vintage is so sure that one wonders only why the balance of retro and contemporary doesn't tilt more in favor of the modern, of their own particular stamp. Surely they can play anything, as this excellent record shows.
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