POP MUSIC REVIEW : L.A. Underground Band I Love You Loses Its Grunge

As a Southland-based underground band, I Love You was loose and noisy, rocking such clubs as the Coconut Teaszer and the Gaslight with its dissonant, ‘60s-flavored garage grunge. Indie-music buffs on both coasts adored it--a couple of years ago, it was the band that New York insiders were most likely to ask Angelenos about.

As brand-new Geffen recording artists, I Love You has lost the grunge, discarded the noise, pumped up the ‘60s thing . . . and maybe lost a little bit of what made it special to begin with. At an industry-packed Club Lingerie on Wednesday, I Love You seemed like just another hard-rock band from L.A.

The band did a thudding version of “I’m So Glad,” the Skip James song that Cream did on its first album, without any of the slither or the sexiness of the blues. Sometimes it dredged up some Black Sabbath sludge; sometimes it got into a propulsive, throbbing Soundgarden groove.

But the model of choice this time out seems to be Cream, open, bluesy riffs and crooned vocals, given the full-on churning Guns N’ Roses-style revisionist treatment and tight, commercial song structures. And their static stage presence was the visual equivalent of listening to the stereo with the treble turned all the way down.