Customer Reviews

Rose City [Vinyl]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Atmospheric pop/rock from a band centered around a male/female duo,similar to the infrastructure of bands like The Raveonettes. Viva Voce is an American band (Portland by way of Nashville and part of Alabama)that may sound European during the first few listens. Here on their fifth album, the duo-turned-quartet make obvious advances with the fullness of their sound and production, leaving the primitive quality of past recordings behind.

Rose City still retains the keep-it-in-the-family like charm found of albums like Lovers Lead The Way and Get Yr Blood Sucked Out while keeping some of that neo-psychedelic feel in songs like the opener "Devotion" and "Red Letter Day". The strong vocal contribution from co-founder Kevin Robinson keeps Viva Voce from being another female-led indie rock band, although the soft, folky contributions from main vocalist Anita Robinson are among the best I've heard lately and I don't think they would have that much trouble standing out even without Kevin's parts included.

While The Raveonettes rely heavily on primitive reverb to shape their signature sound and The Kills depend dearly on well thought out pre-programmed drum tracks that borderlines their output as disco-punk, Viva Voce's songs are built more organically and are centered around basic pop/rock song structure complimented by some very innovative yet memorable guitar work by Kevin.

To call Rose City an actual neo-psychedelic rock album would be misleading. The songs are too formatted in pop. Most psychedelic indie rock have a dark, mysterious, almost sleepy quality. Rose City is far more awake. The entire record could offer the perfect soundtrack to a bright post-dawn morning walk on the beach - which, depending on how the sun shines through the clouds on that given day, could be an experience that is hardly psychedelic.

'Rose City' was evidently created with a very swift turnaround time, and to be honest you can kinda feel it. Don't take that as a dismissal of this album, though, because it is a very worthy entry from a gratuitously underappreciated indie pop duo. Rather, 'Rose City' plays things just a bit closer to traditional pop/rock structure and aesthetic than Viva Voce's previous LPs. Tracks like 'Octavio' and 'Devotion' exemplify this album's M.O.: march in, serve up the goods (solid hooks, great vocals from Anita & Kevin, and some psychedelica-tinged guitar work), and get out before things become too listless or jam-band-esque. It gets the job done for sure. So while it's easy to lament the loss of the perky, soundscape-driven grooves of Viva Voce's first albums, it's very hard to offer any real criticism to this one. Recommended.