Vue
Vue
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Vue
Vue
Pop, 2000
RiYL: The Cramps, Suicide, The Stooges, Devo |
Vue shows the final stage of the caterpillar's unfolding. The crude, double-guitar assault of Rex John Shelverton and John Buffa harks back to '60s garage-rock and to the Stooges' wall of noise. Suicide-like keyboard touches, courtesy of a Jessica Ann Graves, weave an unnerving atmosphere around the electrifying rock and roll riffs. Shelverton's vocals (somewhere between Suicide's Alan Vega's zombie trance and Iggy Pop's wild lust) snarl angst and rage at every opportunity.
If opener "White Traffic" is standard rave-up fare, some of the songs are worthy of the classics. "Girl," in particular, rocks with the suspenseful hypnosis and violent mood swings of Vega and Jim Morrison's dark psychodramas. In the heyday of new-wave, this would have been considered a masterpiece.
The loud and solemn howl of "Angel's Alright" and the fuzzed-out rock of "Cotton Kisses" roam similar terrain. Between the lines, it is not difficult to track down shades of Gun Club's hardcore blues ("The Shame"), Devo's cartoonish pantomimes ("Talk To A Model"), and The Cramps' voodoo rock ("We Were Here").
Surprisingly, when the band lets go, namely in the instrumental "Her Moods," what pours out is a more than respectable psychedelic epic. In a similar vein, the dilated ballad "Madame Whore" grazes acid-rock grandeur.
A third of the album is exciting, pulsating, and captivating. Another third is intriguing because of clever genre experimentation. The final third should not have been there. But two out of three's not bad.
PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.