Belfast three-piece Alt-Rockers, Venus Effect, don’t take themselves too seriously, which is a refreshing change from the self-hype and self-absorption we sometimes have to wade through when dealing with band submissions. To quote their own Facebook blurb:- “Stevie writes the songs and sings on them, Dave plays the Bass and Rumbles on them and Bob Drums and Thumps on them!” You have to give props to any band who downplays themselves to this extent. Quite clever reverse psychology actually.
The band have cited a long list of the usual Alt/Grunge/Indie Rock influences (Nirvana, Q.O.T.S.A., Sabbath, Foos etc). Without hearing all of their material, I’d say the influence that stands out most to me on ‘Into The Fire’ is Oasis or maybe moreso Beady Eye. It’s hard to get away from the inalienable fact that singer, Stevie, sings a lot like Liam G. The grungy guitar sound and overall feel of the song may not quite match the anthemic heights of Oasis, but certainly that gravelly/nasally drawl is classic ‘Liam’. The song itself has a lot to commend it, with a very decent raw production and a decent amount of hook and attitude. There’s a few clumsy guitar bits n pieces here n there; a few bits that are a wee bit ‘sixth form school band’ with ‘obvious’ chord changes/progressions. I realise that with a lot of Alt/Indie that obvious is kind of the point, and I’ve already said that Venus Effect clearly don’t claim to be re-writing musical history. But a bit more thought could perhaps have raised the song a notch above where it is at.
But, for a band in its infancy, this is a very decent beginning and a lot of people out there will hear it and think I am missing the point (join the queue).
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