The comic strip presents … J.C. Satan, even the name guaranteed to raise a snigger, a sort of psyche-rock boy-girl cartoon creation, Gorillaz meets The Cramps and The Jesus And Mary Chain on a dark and wild night, everybody gets wasted and one massive psyche-garage freakout ensues. The cartoon image is hard to assuage, especially with the cover of the album, the masked rocker with slicked-back hair flanked by 2 topless amazon rock-chicks … and before you get too excited, yes it is only a comic drawing! Their label Slovenly Records describe the band as “hailing from Bordeaux, France, and two girls from Turin, Italy, who cosmically collided in Bordeaux”, principally singer-songwriter Arthur Satan, formerly of garage-punk band The Meatards, teaming up with lyricist Paula H. to craft swirling raw psychedelia and drug-referenced songs of young love and taking a long hard look at yourself in the mirror in the small hours. The French and Italians resurrecting British psychedelia, what could possibly go wrong …?

But a quick perusal of J.C. Satan’s Sick Of Love takes you on a rollercoaster ride through the aforementioned 80s and 90s psychedelia (add to the mix a smattering of Stone Roses and My Bloody Valentine) to classic work by the likes of The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett), and even a bit of The Beatles and the great howling Roky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators. It’s also a reminder again, should one still be needed, that while The Velvet Underground never had a hit album, in terms of impact and influence they are surely one of the most important bands ever to exist … I mean EVER! So J.C. Satan are not bringing much new to the table here, but Sick Of Love still has a lot to admire about it and while it may not be “2010′s lone, true apocalyptic masterpiece” the label claims it to be, it’s certainly a garage flower with moments of rare charm!

The main problem with Sick Of Love is it burns too brightly too quickly. Neil Young did once say it was “Better to burn out than to fade away” (he also said “once you’ve gone you can’t come back”!), but J.C. Satan start out with all their best songs, with a strong ‘retro’ element about them, and then the album spreads itself a bit thin as the band rock out with lo-fi garage fillers.

So we have ‘Odyssey of love’ opening with all guns blazing, guitars slightly off-kilter but all the better for that, and surely a dead ringer for Pink Floyd’s ‘Arnold Layne’, the dreamy guitar like Oasis with balls! The lyrics are run-of-the-mill psychedelia (do you remember the first time …?), but do the job: “We are on the moon when I’m with you, we’re riding horses, we live in the clouds, we are surfing waves.” ‘Prehistoric Love’ sounds like The Monkees ‘(I’m not your) steppin’ stone’ and has the immortal lines “I don’t give a fuck … give me my prehistoric love” These guys and chicks are pretty far out man! And then to cap it, there’s album standout track ‘Your place’, which starts like Stone Roses ‘I wanna be adored’ on their classic 1989 debut, all sludgy sustain with My Bloody Valentine guitar poking through the shoegazey vocals:

“Wake up late in the morning

In a bed full of stories

There’s no love, no romance

Just a jerk in a coma”

It’s a ‘morning-after-the-night-before’ comedown wrestling with drug-fueled paranoia and the hurt of rejection/separation. In other words, the Velvets’ ‘Sunday morning’, but with a glint of optimism at the end: “I don’t think all is over, there’s still love, still romance, and your mark in my soul.” Sweet! Then ‘Itaca’ also has more than a hint of the Velvets’ ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ from their legendary eponymous 1969 album, but a band surely still looking for carnal pleasures before they seek redemption.

By now the music is becoming overly familiar garage rock, the drugs are wearing off and the band struggling to find direction. ‘Can you’, ‘Escape for love’ and ‘Adventure boat’ is a Beatles-esque ‘Helter Skelter’ medley of unadulterated garage-punk fireworks, fun but pretty empty really, the psychedelic reverberations have petered out as the band seem to be searching for hi-octane thrills.

It’s a pity because a good mini-album or a pair of ep’s could have been culled out of the great sprawl of music here. J.C. Satan may be storing up their best for later. The boy-girl thing also works well on Sick Of Love, but would benefit from more female vocals taking the lead, like on ‘You’re good, I’m not bad’. It feels at times as though some voices are struggling to be heard in the raw mix, so please less thrash and more subtlety and psychedelia. But maybe I’m missing the point … comic books have their superheroes, time to get out of here as the album climaxes, a pleasant enough garage romp:

“This wasn’t my room, that wasn’t my house

I saw my cat flying through the sky

These weren’t my clothes, those weren’t my pants

Dressing bizarre, flying through the sky

I’m second to none, I’m a superstar, I’m your superhero

Is my arm, that is my sword, against the darkness, like a superhero”