Sinai Vessel: Profanity

Artist: Sinai Vessel
Title: Profanity
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 12th March 2014
Reviewed By: Ben Chapman

Sinai Vessel’s EP Profanity portrays the North Carolina three-piece as the unsigned beacons of sensitive punk rock authenticity.

Cats crashes through a short intro before picking a steady bassline, providing rhythm to a looping melody and quavering Bright Eyes-esque vocals. The music drags its angst-treading feet towards an eventual dramatic finish. With its increasingly angry vocals and distortion smudged with doom, the song attempts to create a nostalgic feel which it seems the band don’t fully show they've mastered until further into the EP.

Greatham plays a nice concise guitar interlude with some minimal howling far in the background for theatrical effect. This song's brevity and delicacy shows there's variety to the band, particularly after the dark and wallowing tone of Cats. The feel of this song isn't properly returned to during the EP, but provides a nice taste of the capable guitar work to be heard on the bonus track, a cover of Nick Drake’s sublime Place to Be. Sinai Vessel have punk rock sensibilities, but aren't shy of influences from an established beauty of straightforward aesthetic melodic awareness.

Cuckcold consists of a bopping vocal-led emo anthem, where high pitched backing vocals shout angstily about the classic punk rock theme of growing up, with a bit more care taken over the lyrics than other leading brands that allows this song to surpass the run of the mill.

Drown Around is a series of dreamlike waves, in which the steady ringing of guitars chirp along comfortingly under a passionate vocal performance. The interesting vocals scream in prelude to the thud of bass. Structural depth is present in the variety of clever little features, such as when offbeats separate the rest of the band from the bass before they all return together for the song’s optimistic ending, all glued with the addition of a cheekily jolly horn section.

In Flannery, sad lyrics mask a happy melody that's brushed along unhurriedly with flangey chords. Dramatic breaks throughout the tune leave the listener craving the return of the sweet melodies in the verses and choruses. The instrumentation's build up towards the end is uplifting. With a catchy refrain to scream over the outro, the job is done. The twists of mood, complex arrangements, and punctuating horns are done to great effect and will surely convert all sorts of fans.

Index on the Oval uses pretty much the same formula as the previous track, though it's all carried off so well that Sinai Vessel can get away with it. There's the same incremental force towards inevitably stirring ending, with steady layering of fresh vocal interpretations and new riffs over a compelling punk rock backbone.

Upon listening, Profanity is a tight six track EP that's musically agile with a jarring yet natural song structure, where booming rhythm and melodic flow trickle down to empower each song's ending.