The Mansions' music doesn't bear much relation to Bauhaus --- the Mansions have talent, and songs, to name but two points of differentiation --- but they definitely are both fishing in the same pond. Lead vocalist Eddie O's chops bear a passing familiarity to Peter Murphy's, and the same veneer of underlying depression that make Bauhaus such a favorite among the kids who find it such a drag to have everything they want (as opposed to, say, their counterparts in Sarajevo, who have to grub through abandon buildings looking for a dead dog for dinner) underlies The Mansions music as well, though they are quite a bit peppier in spots. The Mansions still sound depressed, but the seratonin supplement is starting to kick in. O's vocals are underlaid with a murky mix of guitar, drums, and wonderfully cheesy organ, the type that Ray Manzarek of the Doors would have played once he came down off his 35 years-and-counting acid trip.

Some of the songs on CHARMS FOR LOVE AND REVENGE ("Livin' in a Fantasy", "Under the Sky",) conjure up images of dark nightclubs, or boutiques with blacklights and clerks who blend so perfectly into the background that you never see them until you're ready to break for the door with that bong you just slipped under your jacket. Other tracks ("Brave New World", "Rock & Roll," "Z-28" ) would be perfect as background music for an episode of The Sopranos: cutting-edge hip, and unknown, so that the website's bulletin board would be flooded with inquiries the next day (Bacala 559: Anybody know the name of the song that was playing while Meadow was dryhumping her Korean roommate?:-)). The problem with the CD --- bigger than minor but less than major --- is that occasionally, such as on "Little Atomic Bomb," the guys in The Mansions don't know when to shut up, and what could have been a decent song degenerates into the aural equivalent of electronic armpit farts. They aren't the only band to ever have this problem, by any means ---Led Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction are but two who certainly weren't immune to it--- and hopefully they'll grow out of it.

Despite its weaknesses, CHARMS FOR LOVE AND REVENGE is definitely worth picking up for its strengths. The CD, taken as a whole, is so hip without pretending not to be that it's hard to pass on it. With some consistently stronger songs, and a little more consideration of O's vocal limitations, The Mansions could easily, in time, become the Next Big Thing. It might be their time.