Album Reviews
Within the first thirty seconds of "Crush," I remember why this is my favorite Violet Burning album. Those guitars still give me goose bumps. They come in with so much weight and distortion, but there is a beauty underneath the noise that makes me want to turn it up instead of back away. I've heard this record plenty of times, and that opening has never lost its effect on me.
Michael Pritzl and Andy Prickett create an atmosphere that feels bigger than the songs themselves. Guitar lines drift around the vocals, then push forward in waves of feedback and fuzz. Prickett's leads are a huge part of what I love here. They can sound ragged and almost out of control, yet they always seem to arrive exactly where the song needs them. Pritzl's voice holds everything together. You hear the longing in it even before you pay close attention to the words.
"Underwater" gives the album a little room to breathe. The opening guitar strumming is a welcome change after the heavier moments, but the feeling remains just as intense. Pritzl doesn't need a wall of distortion behind him to make a song convincing. There is something vulnerable in his delivery that makes this one linger. It's one of the clearest examples of how much of the album's power comes from the performance rather than the volume.
"Silver" is another favorite. I love the throbbing bass and the way it keeps the song moving beneath the guitars. That steady pulse gives Pritzl something solid to sing against while the rest of the arrangement seems to hover around him. "Goldmine" has that same ability to make a personal feeling sound enormous. These are songs I can get lost in, but they never lose the human voice at their center.
Steve Hindalong deserves a lot of credit, too. His drumming gives the music shape without making it feel confined. With so many guitar textures filling the speakers, it would be easy for the songs to turn into a blur. The rhythm section keeps them grounded, and Hindalong knows when to push and when to leave space. The musicianship is impressive throughout, but what stays with me is how naturally everyone serves the feeling of the songs.
The album does ask for some patience. A few songs stretch out, and there are moments when the layers threaten to swallow the melody. I can understand why someone might find it a little long. For me, though, the atmosphere is such a large part of the appeal that I rarely want it hurried along. The quieter passages make the heavy ones hit harder, and the record rewards the time you give it.
The Violet Burning have made plenty of worthwhile music, but this is the album I keep coming back to. It has the big guitars I love, the emotional performances that make them matter, and a sense of mystery that hasn't faded with repeated listening. It's a beautiful, bruised record and one of the strongest examples of what this band can do.
The Violet Burning guitarist Andy Prickett says, "When we were recording the album, we broke it down into three categories: love songs, broken hearted songs and broken-hearted love songs." Comparisons have been made to Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, U2, etc., but with sounds shooting from the speakers like western twang, acid rock, guitar pop psychedelic funk and goth, this band packs a very substantial wallop of its own -- one that I dare say matches or surpasses these bands at their best. And like with most really good bands, you might be able to throw a bunch of music tags at the music to sort of give people an idea of where it's all coming from, but really, it doesn't come close to doing that at all. Anyway, I figure a band that can bring a Tusk-era Lindsey Buckingham crashing into a wall of 90's guitar crunch and wail has to be worth a long look.
"You move me, crush me, bend me, please don't break me/ goldmine, goldmine/ you leave me breathless," sings the rock band The Violet Burning on its self-titled Domo Records debut album.
This rising group from Long Beach, Calif., may turn out to be a gold mine of its own with its psychedelic Gothic rock catching rave reviews, especially on college campuses.
The band, which has performed with the likes of Dishwalla, The Nixons, Jars of Clay and Cracker, plays the Ironhorse Tavern, 721 S. 1st, on Thursday. Cover charge will be $4 per person.
"Our goal is not really to rock," Michael Pritzl, singer and guitarist, says. "The goal is more for what we call 'vibe.' For feeling."
Influences include The Cure, U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen, but their own experimental sound focuses on a three-guitar collage with vocals still taking a dominant role. The group says the album is broken into three categories: love songs, broken-hearted songs and broken-hearted love songs.
The Violet Burning takes melancholy rock to passionate heights with their echoing melodies, and brooding lyrics, "Have you got feelings?/ Will you sell some, if I give you this stone?/ I can't help it, I've nothing left to give." Pritzl's falsetto on the cuts "Blind" and "Silver" also holds an eerie, mystical quality.
For such a new band, they manage to portray a real maturity and ease with their music. The album is great, though a little long; their live show has been described as "captivating" and "heart wrenching."
Abilene's lucky to catch the band on this tour - we're their smallest venue, as they travel from Houston to Boston, and from there to Philadelphia and New York.
"The Violet Burning" isn't that bad. But it still ain't metal. There is a lot of fuzzy distortion, rolling bass lines, and ambient parts in the collage that makes up the package called The Violet Burning. In reality, The Violet Burning is more like a grunge-cousin to the stoner rock scene if the stoner scene had started in England and not southwest America. Or you could say that The Violet Burning sound like a low-key Jesus & Mary Chain mired in the Brit-pop resurgence of the new millennium.
The Violet Burning's alt-rock style isn't enough to attract radio airplay, and its echo-like distorted leads won't do a damn thing to get these guys on the radio either. Whoops, I swore; I didn't mean to. Did I mention that The Violet Burning are a Christian band? Although the lyrics on this self-titled debut aren't very specific to praise they do conjure up themes often found in Christian literature: salvation, belief, self-doubt, declarations of faith, devotion to the Creator, and the apocalypse.
There are times when the band rocks out as it does on blistering outro of "Fever" and the psychedelic meanderings of "The Sun and the Sky." For what it's worth, "The Sun and the Sky" received airplay on MTV and is an instantly likeable song that would have fit right along with the more uplifting songs from U2 or The Alarm if it'd only come out in the late '80s. "Low" has a cool guitar riff and rockin' drumbeat, but maybe lingers a little past its welcome at nearly eight minutes.
Vocalist Michael J. Pritzl sounds like a cross between U2's Bono and The Why Store's Christopher Shaffer. Lyrically and emotionally the vocals work hand in hand - this stuff is particularly heartfelt and somewhat depressing. The band meanwhile sounds like a harder version of The Cure without the gorgeous melodies to prop it up. The song's constructs and the music's purpose are really small but significant parts of a whole. The band is creating an atmosphere in which the songs exact their toll on the protagonist's expulsion of emotion.
In the end, The Violet Burning's self-titled CD fits into the post-Seattle backlash of toned-down pop songs although its roots are firmly in the '80s post-punk scene. It's not hard to see why this band got some positive press in the late '90s, but I don't see the band gaining any new fans from the ranks of Rough Edge readers.
"The Violet Burning" was produced by Steve Hindalong.
The Violet Burning is Michael J. Pritzl on guitars and vocals, Andy Prickett on guitars, and Jason Pickersgill on bass. Steve Hindalong was the session drummer/percussionist.
