Title: Villains (S/T)
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Release: 24th February 2014
Reviewed By: Ben Chapman
Essex band Villains' self-titled debut album makes a welcome contribution with some straightforward alternative rock that's reliable yet investigative with just the right amount of heavy.
The opening track balances Villains' melodic designs with their heavier passages easily. The Way I Tell Them will keep indie fans happy when they want to rock out and the metal fans keen when they're breaking from the raw shouting to get a bit contemplative. The agreeable lead vocals are ever encouraging home renditions, finely melodic and diverse, with conviction in the heavier sections. In some ways, the record can sound slightly like This Town Needs Guns and in others Alien Ant Farm: indeed, many band's sounds can be listened out for in Villains' fluently tailored weave of alternative, metal, and rock. Whichever way, it’s an excellent start to the album. Villains establish a strong, snappy, yet musically informed style in the first minute.
In Wicked Ways a vulnerable vocal opening leads into a prominent bass with an elastic tone you can almost chew. Rough chords chop away during the aggressive hollering of an energetic chorus. The Fall and We Have Capture's cacophony of extensive vocal lines, rife with sweet harmonies, will keep Jimmy Eat World fans happy. However, that's not to say that Villain's music is not original.
Bleed has a range of catchy delayed guitar lines but apart from this the track doesn't really contribute much more to the album. This and The Light Outlives the Star are perhaps the rare low points on the album; overly sentimental build ups precede an overwhelming chorus that seems somewhat uncalled for: there’s a redemptive interlude of intense guitar picking that would have more gladly been the main part of the song: but the repetition of the slow, unwieldy chorus disrupts the listening experience.
Luckily the pace returns to the album with Come Out and Play, certainly deserving its place as the album's main single. Vision trusts the bass to carry the melody in the intro with satisfying effect, rising up to hang around the clean high notes, occasionally dropping some thick bouncy tones. The guitar weighs in chunks of distortion upon the track and we're back into yet another of Villains' more powerful anthems.
Sinners is a slog of chugging guitar and dramatic breakdowns interspersed with steady bass plodding through the verses as the guitar melody angles deep into the ears. A well placed acoustic section before the ending really draws attention to the vocals and their precisely manoeuvred backing parts.
An impressively mature, loud, and well-produced debut with a solid tracklist of catchy tunes, Villains' admirable self-titled effort commands relevance and demands listeners seek out a live performance.
Villains is out 24th February 2014
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