VUE SPCD465 (Sub Pop)

VUE

SPCD465 (Sub Pop)

If you locked a monkey in a room alone and fed it nothing but a steady diet of Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties Velvets-influenced bands, would it just be a matter of time before it came up with White Light White Heat? And what would happen if you took that monkey and dressed it up in make-up and tights and shagged its dyed orange hair? Or rolled it around in some broken glass? Well, there's no doubting that if Lou Reed fell in a forest, this band would hear it and turn it to their advantage for the most part. There's a definite and recognizable sonic intensity here ("Nothing Left but You"), but "Sister Ray" it ain't. And while this band isn't trying to be the Velvet Underground, fer cripes sake, if you're gonna play with fire, or at least a psychedelic light show, expect the comparisons. Singer Rex Shelverton has the pipes of a young Bono or James Hall, and the rest of the band totally rocks. But it isn't until they bust out the 3/4 thumped guitar interplay in "We Were Here," or the halcyon chill of the instrumental "Her Moods" that they venture into a li'l more contempo culture (like, say, mid-Eighties NYC) and begin to find their legs. In fact, as the CD cranks on, their influences drop off the sleeve a bit and they prove that they're smarter than your average monkey.