Vinnie Caruana – ‘Survivor’s Guilt’

Perpetually bridging the divide between pop-punk and hardcore, The Movielife and I Am The Avalanche frontman Vinnie Caruana has carved himself a very specific niche: heartfelt rock songs which work as well played by a 5-piece band on the main stage of a punk festival as they do played in a tiny room by one man with an acoustic guitar.

Many fans of either band (side-project Peace’d Out is something of an outlier, being an outlet for his more brutal tendencies) are really just fans of Vinnie Caruana, so it’s little surprise that he’s finally released a full album under his own name. What may come as a surprise, considering that Caruana is backed here by a band consisting of I Am The Avalanche colleagues Kellen Robson and The Ratt, and Peace’d out collaborator/RX Bandits guitar wizard Steve Choi, is what the fruit of this punk-underground melting pot actually sounds like.

Opener ‘Burn It Down, with its instantly-memorable hook and chord progressions, is vintage Caruana. That voice is unmistakeable and but for the prominent acoustic guitars, it could be from either of the last two IATA records. From there, though, we’re in unfamiliar territory – mid-paced semi-ballads abound. And though Caruana has never been one to shy away from confessional lyrics, even by his standards these are brutally cathartic.

Caruana’s love of the UK (and Liverpool FC), as well as his failed marriage to a Brit, have been a recurring theme in both his lyrics and his solo acoustic shows for a few years now. On ‘Angel of the North’, he simultaneously indulges both his anglophilia and residual bitterness, resulting in witty lyrics like “They can hardly tell I’m American anymore/I fooled them all with my overcoat and insightful opinions on football”.

Elsewhere, the title track acts as a microcosm of the album itself – those vocal lines couldn’t have been written or sung by anyone else, but the song’s plodding pace, minor chords and lush string embellishments are anathema to the beer-soaked punk rock we might reasonably have expected, given their author’s pedigree.

That’s not to say it’s doom and gloom throughout – merely that in considering his own artistic instincts rather than those of a band, Caruana has once again found himself occupying the middle ground, but this time it’s the land between rock and balladry. Closer ‘Your Religion is Killing Me’, by far the most intriguing track on the album, even veers off in a post-rock direction.

‘Survivor’s Guilt’ is a fantastically accomplished album, albeit one that does nothing to dispel the cliché of “maturing” being synonymous with the replacement of energy with introspection.Fans of Vinnie Caruana’s voice and songwriting will find much to enjoy here, but those of The Movielife and IATA per se might be taken aback by its pace and tone. Enter this record with an open mind, and prepare to emerge from it very, very sad indeed.

ROB BARBOUR