Vincent Black Shadow

By Acknak

2 November 2008 No Comment

First order of business: if you are expecting this to be an article about the generic Canadian alterna-goth band with the almost identical name, check to make sure you didn’t omit an all-important “THE” at the beginning of your Google search. What we are dealing with here is the trashy, blood-curdling psychedelic noise machine that hails from the land of Natty Boh and cheap homicide (that’s Baltimore, for those of you lucky enough to have never been there).

These guys have been vandalizing a lot of eardrums (and occasionally other things) since their self-titled debut in 2005. Old heads and whippersnappers alike have taken notice, and for good reason. V.B.S. is far from being just another culprit of retro rock plagiarism. Sure, the influences of Iggy, MC5, Sabbath, Blue Cheer, etc. are undeniable, but there is a lot more going on than just a homage to the past. They take the old sounds, dust them off, cut them with razors, piss on them, mix them with household chemicals, and then bring them back to life as something entirely different.

Their debut record (still my favorite) is a dizzy explosion of analog crunch. There is a nice dynamic among the eight tracks; a wandering fluidity between totally schizoid carpet bombing, shimmering trances of reverb, and nasty avalanches of gut-wrenching fuzz. There is some seriously evil guitar wizardry to be found throughout; the more ponderous segments bring sludge pioneers such as St. Vitus or even Pentagram to mind. Definitely a must have dose if you know what’s good for you.

With More Deeper (2008), some of the lumbering, hypnotic drone feel has been shed. The punk element has been juiced up a bit, and the vocals are even more caustic than previously. There is still plenty of lo-fi warmth and rumble, and a few brief interludes of spacey wash, but the overall pace of the record is very much raw horsepower and burnt pavement. Remember the grenade-tossing bounty hunter from Raising Arizona? His ghost is riding a hog across the desert right now with this record as the omnipresent soundtrack. Hunter S. Thompson is there too.

To top it all off, these boys put on a live show to rival their studio abilities. I’ve seen them play more than once, and it has always been a thick orange stew of big sounds, big mischief, and flailing limbs and hair. From the first time I saw them bust out with “Child of Orion” a few years ago, I was hooked. There is no denying it: V.B.S. is just the sort of racket that your mother would disapprove of. Unless your mom happened to be a test subject in the MK-ULTRA drug experiments back in the 60’s. Then she might dig it.

Vincent Black Shadow on Myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=134283451

Heartbreakbeat Records:

http://www.heartbreakbeatrecords.com/HeartBreakBeat.htm

Additional reviews:

Have You Heard

Aversion

SenBaltimore