Smoke
Off Vinyl
"Nice e.p." CDR EP
Self-released
Genres: alt rock, grunge, rock
Jan 10 - 16 2005 |
I gave Smoke Off Vinyl's last record a pretty mediocre review,
so I was surprised to get their Nice e.p. in the mail awhile
back. But I like persistence, so it was an appreciated
gesture. Here they've adopted a grungy, guitar-heavy sound that
sounds sort of like mid-90s alternative rock. I can hear The
Tea Party and Marcy Playground in this; it uses heavy guitars and
deep, angsty-but-mature vocals combined with effective but
unspectacular songwriting. The sound isn't brilliant - or particularly
creative - but it satisfies its niche perfectly. The three full
originals on this disc ("Nice" is just a short instrumental)
all occupy the same corner of the musical alt rock world - the moody soft/hard
contrast of
"Departure" is a definite highlight. The
oddly-selected cover of "With or Without You" is a neat
inclusion - SOV gives the tune a darker, grungy sound; the
results are interestingly noisy, but far from breathtaking. Once
again, Smoke Off Vinyl prove to me that they are capable of
tight, worthwhile rock music - I just hope they'll add a bit more of
their own distinguished flair for the next release. 75%
Fun Fact: From Smoke Off Vinyl's
bio:
Another highlight for the band was when
Jauch and Reehoff had to resort back to their days as an acoustic
duo for a battle of the bands. Smoke Off Vinyl got into the finals
doing what they do as a rock trio, but, due to a last minute
emergency Banks had to leave town and S.O.V. was without a drummer
for the finals. In keeping with the old saying, “the show must go
on”, Jauch and Reehoff whipped up an acoustic set two nights
before hand and emerged from the contest victorious, having beat out
four other fully loaded rock bands with just a voice and an acoustic
guitar.
Matt Shimmer [Vitals:
5 tracks, distributed by the
band, released 2004] |
