Vinyl Floor

Vaudeville

Written by: PP on 28/12/2014 23:10:15

Two years after the release of their debut album "Peninsula", Copenhagen based Vinyl Floor return with a sophomore album called "Vaudeville". It's a bit of a departure from the indie rock / singer-songwriter style of their previous work, now balancing two entirely different approaches to rock music on the same record. On one hand, the band write rocking alternative rock tunes like "Change The Song" and "Shift", which come with garage rock undertones and a solid amount of groove. But on the opposite side, they have nothingsaying pop rockers like "Time Your Life", or worse, the completely avant-garde and fucked up structures like "Basket Of Kisses" late on the album, which sounds like a bunch of monks howling prayers in an echoing monastery. Not exactly something relevant to anyone else than the artistic aspirations of the band themselves.

"Vaudeville" is therefore a bit of a schizophrenic release. The best songs, like "Castles", draw from soft indie rock complete with acoustic guitars, and are fairly catchy in their own right. Here Vinyl Floor channel bands like Morrissey, The Cure, and even Interpol within their expression, and is very obviously where the band are at their very best. But the more ambitious material with orchestral sections and larger soundscapes in general are frankly boring and don't really go anywhere. They are too artistic and self-centered in a manner that screams "look at us, we are making deep music with artistic integrity" type of pretentious attitude to writing music, but unfortunately without the substance to back it off - at all.

The result is rather predictable. When the band rock out and lean on their alternative rock backing with more distortion and energy in their soundscape, they are quite decent. But since the majority of the record is spent in this weirdo experimentalist state of songwriting, it becomes difficult to appreciate just what the band is doing overall. "Vaudeville" simply isn't on par with contemporary releases within indie rock to stand out.

Download: Shift, Change The Song, Castles
For the fans of: Morrissey, The Cure, Interpol
Listen: Facebook

Release date 06.10.2014
Karmanian Records

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