released January 6, 2005

aversionline.com, 7 Aug 2005:

Shockingly enough this German act has been around for at least 10 years, and this is their latest self-released CD-R after a handful of CD and vinyl releases throughout the 90's, and I actually have a lot to say to this band, some of which is a little rude, but I have the best intentions, so bear with me. Now, first off, I'll admit that initially I wasn't going to review this CD-R. The packaging looks absolutely horrible and practically screams, "This material will suck!", so that's strike one. It's all brightly colored collaged imagery of people in full black bodysuits with telephones and cats on their laps with weird flying saucer looking things floating around in a hyper pink skyline all over the sleeve. The simple xeroxed insert with the handwritten lyrics even looks 10 times better than the outer sleeve. But the band name, coupled with song titles like "Welcome to Vomit Lake" and "Hairy Sam", among others, wasn't exactly giving me much reason to suspect that the disc would contain anything beyond sheer sonic torment, either. The thing is, before relegating the release to my "Bermuda Triangle" of review material, I popped the disc in for a quick taste, as always, and it's actually really god damn good. So before I dive into this I want to stress something of utmost importance to this band: Okay, I can live with the name Gentle Veincut, and I can stomach the silly song titles, your music makes up for that, but I absolutely cannot tolerate the shitty packaging. Every release that you have shown on your website looks completely atrocious, and this CD-R is one of the worst looking items I've received in the last three months. But your band is so much better than the appearance of these releases would ever suggest, so you owe it to yourselves to put more thought and effort into achieving some sort of visual aesthetic that possesses a certain level of professionalism. Screw my opinion, I know, but I'm serious: It's entirely possible that did all of your records not look like complete dirt, I might have heard the name Gentle Veincut before this release showed up in my mailbox, you know what I mean? Okay, enough ranting for now. What we have here are nine tracks of surging rhythmic indie/noise rock with female vocals that are right in between singing, speaking, and shouting - all of which is quite in line with a sound akin to a lot of what was happening back in the early-90's when this band formed. Expect a solid framework that ranges from extremely jarring and caustic guitar textures that come in repetitious fits to dissonant power chords over subtly melodic bass pulses or even a few heavier riffs that get ever so slightly metallic. "Why" opens up right away with one of the most energetic structures that blends jangly distorted chords and an amazing chorus with intense discordant chords and a more emotional vocal approach that totally kicks ass and represents one hell of a mound of promise for this group. The longer "Bad Dream Boy/Girl" similarly manages to combine a catchy sense of energy with lots of weirdly clashing note choices and a few quick bursts of keyboards before slowing things down and getting much heavier and darker for the bulk of its duration - quite a powerful shift. The aforementioned "Welcome to Vomit Lake" is actually an instrumental that builds off of a quirkier take on the whole rhythmically heavy/sonically noisy contrast and really proves the force of the rhythm section here with tons of solid drum fills and persistent bass runs. Good stuff. Among the only songs that I don't care for is "Bad Day", which is a little more irritating from a musical standpoint with its acerbic textures, but the repetitious lyrics and annoying vocal performances complete with monotonous backups and a few distant handclaps just do nothing for me, so even the one heavy churn that kicks in during the last minute of the track can't really save it. On the other hand, "Steve & the Boys" uses spoken vocals for a rather narrative approach that really stands out, and even its most chaotic and noisy riffing (of which there is plenty) makes for an effective counter to the hints of singing during the chorus. And hell, even those "hip" sounding keyboard notes that pop in for a brief moment don't really bother me, which is rare! The lyrics are sort of narrative throughout the disc too, which works well with both the vocal performance and the generally winding, twisted arrangements of the songs and the prominence often granted to the rhythm section: "Look at these two little hands, strong enough to hold a gun. Look at these two little hands, strong enough to pull the trigger. Sammy boy this ain't no fun. Sammy boy I'm holding a gun. You just did it again. Touching me with your dirty hands. And now you're a dead man..." All in all this is a really enjoyable set of songs. I'd really like to hear more from this band and I hope they start to get a little more attention somewhere, having been around for so long and all. I'd sincerely, sincerely encourage them to take to heart the base message of all of my above ranting though, because I just know for a fact that they're losing potential listeners by the truckload with that shoddy artwork. It just doesn't represent the quality of what they're doing in any way. Great work otherwise, though. I actually think that the four best songs herein slapped onto a 7" with a nice looking package could garner an 8/10 from me. No joke.