Man! Where has this band been all my life? Well, Cinderford, according to the press release, so not more than an hour up the road from me. Well, you can’t pick up on everything, can you, but consider me well and truly on board now.
Like most three-piece bands (a form that has been medically proven to be the best delivery system for rock and roll expression), their songs, or at least the constituent parts, are straightforward, uncomplicated, punchy, and, well, near perfect. The guitar fires off salvos of raw riffage, the bass line mixes melody with muscle, and the drums keep everything powering along, simple enough perhaps, but when it is all put together….well, it restores your faith in rock and roll.
“City of Trees” opens things up, a snarling and superb start, lyrically evoking one of those nostalgic Richard Digance list songs, musically the sound of punk, grunge, and alt-rock finally realizing that they are siblings. That’s how you start an album.
From then on, we are on a killer sonic rollercoaster ride; “Caravaggio” grooves and grinds in the same way that Queens of the Stone Age managed to perfect, but I doubt they ever used that sound to discuss Italian Renaissance artistic icons. (It’s just a guess, I’m not that familiar.)
“The Day is on Your Side” proves that they can do more understated and considered music when they choose too, “Kamakaze Eyes” drives like a bastard, “Bonesetter” leans into more indie realms, but the sort of college rock/indie-rock sound that you would have found in the hidden depths of the Boston backstreet club small scene in the ninties, and the album ends with “White Laces,” a veritable lesson in the slow burning build and dynamic ebb and flow.
The one advantage of doing what I do for a living is the regularity with which you find your next favourite band. Vendetta Deluxe is certainly that, and it is going to take something a bit special to dislodge them from that rarified realm.
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