Media attention, Detroit's music scene has learned, cuts both ways. Since 2002's great White Stripes hype, which propelled practically every Motor City band into the headlines, the press have moved on to Brooklyn, Montreal, and MySpace, leaving the impression that the city's garage rockers are, like, so yesterday.
Fortunately, the Come Ons never really fit into that world, which is why unlike, say, the Von Bondies these days they sound neither dated nor rote. In fact, the dance-oriented trio vocalist-bassist-pianist Deanne Iovan, guitarist Bryan Foreman, and Dirtbombs drummer Patrick Pantano remains peerless back home, having channeled its love of 60s Motown and ESG's early-80s funk into three really good albums of soulful, slow-burning disco infernos.
With Stars, however, the Come Ons graduate from really good to great. Unlike its predecessors, their fourth album is less immediate, forgoing a lot of dance-floor fun for a subtler, more varied late-night vibe that showcases Iovan's smooth, vastly improved vocals. The hip-whipping whirls of "Let Me Be" and "The Perfect Red" prove the groove is still in their hearts, but they've wisely shaken things up with haunting atmospheric numbers like the reverb-laden "Lullaby" and "My One and Only," a cool call-and-response that could easily pass for a lost relic from the girl-group era. No longer content to play their same ole stuff impressive as it may have been the Come Ons have delivered the sophisticated tour de force they've long promised. (Jimmy Draper, San Fransisco Bay Guardian)
