Violent Soho are a band from Australia who specialize in recreating iconic sounds from 90's alt rock with a slight post-hardcore flair in the vocals. Now, this may not sound like a completely unique sound for a band in the 2010's, and that's because there are a lot of bands who emulate this sound, but I think Violent Soho are one of the few that I'd actually recommend that you give a shot.
However, that doesn't mean that this band avoids falling into the same pitfalls that a lot of bands do when recreating this sound, but I'll start by noting the positives of their latest album, Waco, before going into what those shortcomings are. First of all, the first half of this LP is incredibly strong, like, long lost alt rock gem good; especially cuts like "How To Taste" which balances quite guitar phrases with roaring vocals and heavy distortion, or the fun and bouncy "Viceroy" which kind of reminds of Fountains of Wayne mixed with Oasis (a strange combo, I know). And the latter has a lot to do with the vocals, which go from rabid screams, to sounding like a mixture Liam Gallagher and Billy Corgan.
Other notable tracks are "So Sentimental" which is sort of a mini anthem that totally sounds like it could of been on What's The Story, Morning Glory?. But not all the material on this LP stands as strong as the first half, in fact, after the track "Slow Wave" ends, the album simply tries to recreate the feeling of the first LP, but at this point, it sounds stale. This problem is also highlighted by the simple fact that this album and band already remind me of a lot of other, older bands, so its really too bad that they didn't try to sounds a little more unique.
But, it still stands that the first half of this LP is freakin' great, so while this LP may not end up on my end of the year list, I'll for sure be revisiting this LP for the remainder of the year, or whenever I need a 90's fix, but want cleaner, meatier production.
6.5/10
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