Already the critics darlings This Aint Vegas are making massive waves with their north-eastern brand of disjointed rawk. I won’t even try to pigeonhole it in fear of being shot down, but I will state that it’s what is becoming extremely fashionable in the non-fashionable underground world. The guitars have that lo-fi tone and sound and the vocals sound all desperate and shouty without ever coming across like the cliched mainstream bands of a similar ilk.
But what has made ‘The Black Lung Captain’ sit up and scream out at the mainstream mags? Well to be honest I’m not too sure. The quality of the musicianship is extremely high and some of the songs are extremely good, but I personally think I could reel off a lot of bands that I believe have put out better records in the past year. However, I am basing this review merely on the strengths and merits of this cd and not on the band’s live performances which I’m told are highly impressive.
So proceedings kick off with the excellent ‘Promotion’, a track which kicks and bites around a repetitive vocal line but for me this is probably a high point. Repeated listens show a guitar sound and tone that is very similar and whilst there is plenty of perfectly exceuted angular riffery, it becomes a bit worn over time. ‘Your Name Is A Real One’ for example threatens to break the mould with it’s stop/start feel but never breaks out. It’s a feeling I’m left with on a number of occasions, that This Aint Vegas have set things up but just can’t take it to the next level for whatever reason. ‘222’ is an instrumental, seemingly out of polace and making the record rather disjointed by ruining the flow, but then maybe that’s the point. Damn my staple diet of Blink 182 records.
Then there’s the 30-second ‘Spark It Up Truman’ which effectively acts as a pre-cursor to ‘Been Party’. Again everything’s disjointed as the guitars chop around and that’s all well and good, but the shouty vocals don’t offer anything for me at all. There’s no power, no passion and for me it certainly doesn’t hit the heady heights others believe it does. But that’s the great thing about music, different bands and songs connect with different people. If we all liked the same stuff the world would be an incredibly dull place. The closing ‘Joint Bank Account’ is a memorable moment, but not enough to convince me that this Sunderland quartet are as good as I’ve been led to believe.
In conclusion, ‘The Black Lung Captain’ is alright but not really my kind of thing. Sure to appeal to anyone who likes their music of the more obscure or arty variety, it doesn’t float my boat as it obviously has to others. It’s not a bad record by any means, but I could name a lot better bands who haven’t been given the credit this lot have. Opinions eh, ain’t they great…
www.jealousrecords.com
Paul