At Least We Can be FWB’s: A Review of The Veils’ Sun Gangs
The Veils make an excellent introduction. They are charming, and they might even pull out your chair at the dinner table at a fancy restaurant on a Friday night. But like all relationships, mine with Sun Gangs, The Veils’ new album due out April 7th, is full of highs and lows.
The opening track, “Sit Down by the Fire,” establishes the rest of the album both lyrically and vocally. Beginning with simple chord progressions on piano and acoustic guitar, lead singer Finn Andrews’s voice comes pouring into the song, smooth and strong. Andrews also paints a beautiful picture with his lyrics with lines such as “My father singing in the fallen leaves.” There is one trap which he falls into, though, that continues throughout the rest of the album, and that is the curse of the vocal pattern. It seems that once he finds one that he likes, he can’t break from it. Many times the songs don’t have distinct vocal patterns, either – the same one is repeated throughout many of them, making the album redundant at times. The only way to describe it is that each verse sounds like driving up hill, then coasting down the other side.
“Sun Gangs,” the title track, is an introduction into the band’s ability to harness the ultimate melancholy within 3:43. The song opens with a sound like pulsating rays of sunlight, which I love because I’m a sucker for ambient noise. Although the smooth qualities of Andrews’s voice remain, the strength is purposely suppressed allowing us to hear the heartache. It is the simplest song on the album, just Andrews’s voice and a piano. It is also one of the rare occasions where, although the vocals maintain a specific blueprint, the music itself varies enough that it actually lessens the harshness of the vocal pattern.
But like I said, while there are things I love about this album – the imagery, the music, ambience – I still have a dysfunctional relationship with it. Tracks one through five were the honeymoon stage, but from track six on, my attention began to wander due to lack of excitement. This is most apparent in listening to “Scarecrow” and “Larkspur,” which are placed back-to-back on the record. In total, that is 12:04 of a continuous drone like the sound of very large bees hovering overhead. When listening to these two songs, even separately, it becomes blatantly obvious that The Veils are very big fans of Radiohead. This is particularly apparent in “Larkspur” where I keep hearing Thom Yorke a la “Strange Fishes.”
There are shining moments, if not brief ones, peppered throughout Sun Gangs, though. On track 4, “Killed by the Boom,” Andrews allows his vocals to really stray from their familiar pattern and, with the help of some heavy distortion, his voice comes growling out of the speakers, harsh and dirty. It left me wanting more of it – this is a time when the band gets angry and political and (oh my goodness!) comes close to cursing. I can even look past the Jerry Cantrell-esque wailing of the chorus – the rest of the song is worth it. Then there is “Three Sisters,” with its drums, played by Henning Dietz, driving full-speed through the entire track. I can picture the song being played live; it would get everyone into a groove, moving and letting the music carry them.
To conlude my lecture, I will say this: The Veils, comprised of Finn Andrews (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Sophia Burn (bass), Henning Dietz (drums), and Dan Raishbrook (guitar, noise-wiv-a-Z) is a band worth checking out. If nothing else, if you can’t get through the album at a single whack, put it on your iPod and hit “shuffle songs.” When any track from Sun Gangs pops up randomly, you’ll welcome it, and probably hum along. The record might not be marriage material, but it’s great for a one night stand.
(ED Note. Thanks to Nicole Kai Kobilansky and Ritchie Harvey for the photograph!)
