James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
Reviewed by: Albert Testani
Since the end of summer The Con had been out in the U.S. so I was lucky enough to stumble upon it before I made my way over the pond. While I’ve had the pleasure of listening to Tegan and Sara’s new album for quite sometime now, it is with confidence I say that this album is unique. For anyone not familiar with the Canadian Indie twins, Tegan and Sara are in fact twin sisters that have been performing with each other for years and slowly defining their sound.
There first two albums have a distinct Sinead O’Conner/ Alanis Morissette (mainly Jagged Little Pill) sound. While this was a good base for them to start, the duo quickly branched away from the simplistic sound of a lone acoustic guitar with occasional accompaniment. Their last album, If It Was You, progressed into a sound that was more focused on rhythms, but had an underlying quirky sound that has fully emerged in The Con.
Coincidently the best way to describe the lyrics of The Con is honest. The largest change in the style of writing from Tegan and Sara comes from how personal the lyrics are now, especially on the track “Back in Your Head” with the repeating line, “I’m not unfaithful, but I’ll stray/And I get a little scared.” One cannot help, but just stop and listen to the lyrics at times and wonder what happened to make them sing these lines and dually how they connect with the listener in different ways.
Musically, the album is a superb progression from that of their first album, The Art of Business. The Con is obviously the most produced of all of the albums and has the most additions to it. The acoustic sound remains, but there is a raw edge to the tracks now, for the little distortion or new instrument added gives the songs the Indie quality that bands should look for.
The album flows perfectly and is filled with different styles; the fact that they can accomplish a varying album while not sacrificing the quality is another large reason for the appeal. Infectious sounding female vocals have always been my soft spot, but this only further confirms that when a woman has good voice, it can carry a song so much farther.
This album is unique and is definitely worth sampling if not a purchase. Tegan and Sara appear to be a constantly evolving pair and watching the change maybe just as interesting as the music.
Review by Helen Nianias
Being a 1950s fanatic is not “cool”. The Horrors are “cool”; Vice magazine is “cool”; doing coke with a supermodel is “cool”. Swing nights, as much fun as they may be, are packed to the rafters with slightly lonely people united by a love of Chuck Berry, with a geeky enthusiasm for doilies, cake, and cake served on doilies.
It seems only fitting then, with their rockabilly sound, that Vincent Vincent and the Villains have set themselves slightly apart from these contrived, big-haired, twatty ideas of “cool”. With one foot in rock ‘n’ roll heritage and the other in London’s trendy Shoreditch, this outfit have been kicking around the Big Smoke for as long as anyone can remember, their failure to “make it big” usually blamed on their failure to conform to the “cool” ideal. Which is a shame.
Vincents seem to be most famous for their line-up changes, with ex-co-frontman Charlie Waller leaving in 2005 for Rumblestrips, and “quirky” ‘50s sound rather than being an outstanding band. I wish this album proved their critics wrong, but I don’t think it does, really. Lively, engaging, catchy though the songs may be, it is still a self-professed “best of”, making for a good CD, but lacking the cohesion that a really good album should probably possess. Whilst, fairly obviously, every song isn’t perfect (the very grating Sweet Girlfriend is categorically the smuggest song sung about coupledom ever written) and the lyrics fall sometimes wide of the mark, there are a few gems in this rag-bag of Vincents material.
Selected highlights include Blue Boy, which has been satisfactorily jazzed up with added harmonies, implying the changes the band have undergone since they released it originally on the Young & Lost label. I’m Alive remains what I believe is known as a TUNE. But that’s the best that can be said about Gospel Bombs. These are songs they have been playing for years. Vincents fans have heard them all a thousand times before. Having kept us waiting for years for this album, I can’t help but feel shortchanged.
Yes, their vintage sound is cute; yes, the Spanish guitars make a change from standard contemporary jangly semi-acoustic fare, but surely this sound is just as contrived as smoking a rollie, backcombing your hair and talking about your latest Indie sleb encounter. It’s just a different set of contrivances, and just as gimmicky as the “cool” crowd’s tight trews. Gospel Bombs has unintentionally led me to think that this supposedly nerdy Jerry Lee Lewis obsession is just a cover used to mask some unspectacular indie tunes. Vincent Vincent and the Villains, much like the Horrors and co., lack not style, but substance. What a cliché.
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