Reviewed by John Merrall of Gods of Music

Ouch! The only thing better than harkening back to the golden age of new wave, as far as I'm concerned, is harkening back to the time *before* the golden age of new wave - back when machine-music was very mechanical, very Iron Curtain, and as far as I'm concerned, dead set sexy.

Lipstick have this sound down to a "T." As I'm listening to "You Ain't No Good," more than anything else I'm reminded of the mechanical sound of the really old Human League from the Fast Product compilation. There's big crunchy old-style "pyoom-pyoom" synth noises here, that have the 8-bit fatness without the 8-bit lack of sound quality. Then again, I'm also reminded of the dry charisma of Lali Puna, and the throwaway pop genius of later Human League, Ladytron et al; nothing wrong there, either.

Just to keep my editors happy, I'll throw in the following: fitting and flawless recording, great production, and a singer with a way sexy voice. A nice throbbing beat that catches up to the modern age without yielding the song over to more modern, less adventurous forms of music.

I guess you could criticize the minimal lyrics; then again, the music does make you feel quite forgiving. And in any case, if she was singing the exact same words in Czech, say, that'd make the whole song that much cooler.

Really, the point isn't the lyrics, it's them big fat crunchy synth sounds. This is a song that I'm downloading for sure, and will be playing on my radio show as well. If you like old-style 70's-era dark electronic pop, you should definitely pick this up for yourself.

Stuff like this really makes my day.

For Lipstick music, check out http://orbit.dmusic.com/