Viva Voce (vee’ vah
voh’ chay): Italian; By word of mouth.
For seven years now Kevin and Anita Robinson, a pair of Southern transplants
turned Portland musical innovators, have been creating, recording and
performing their distinct brand of modern rock as Viva Voce. Kevin and Anita
also have two mesmerizing albums of pop rock in the CD racks and upon
delivering their last album, Lovers, Lead the Way!, Viva Voce hit the
road, touring extensively with the likes of Calexico, Ladybug Transistor,
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci and Mazerati, building a devoted audience one brilliant
show at a time.
Such dedicated road time honed their substantial musical chops even further,
adding more muscle to the music, as evidenced on their new album, The
Heat Can Melt Your Brain.
The Heat Can Melt Your Brain will drop nationally this fall on the
smart and tuneful Chicago label, Minty Fresh.
Happily, with this release Viva Voce have completed the most compelling and
mature body of work in their career.
The Heat Can Melt Your Brain deftly reveals an extraordinary band at
the pinnacle of a rapidly blossoming career.
Recorded in their adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon, The Heat Can Melt
Your Brain is a rich stew of musical influences: soulful layered vocals,
cutting rhythmic chops, striking guitar riffage and atmospheric synths; some
obvious, some more obscure. All this producing an album that manages to feel
shockingly original, yet the innovative The Heat Can Melt Your Brain
also evokes the warmth and comfort of a favorite old sweater. From the
opener "Alive with Pleasure" to the album’s closing track "They Never Really
Wake Up," Viva Voce takes us on a musical mystery tour across a landscape
littered with friendly faces, sounds, and the yin and yang of the duo’s
worldviews.
~Dave
Allen/Gang of Four
This Nashville-via-Portland duo has a remote
Tucson connection, having opened for Calexico
once on tour. But their sound is more consistent
with the Chicago indie-rock catalog of Minty
Fresh, the label home of their upcoming release,
The Heat Can Melt Your Brain. (We
Tucsonans have been there, too, thank you.)
Minty Fresh, you may recall, brought us Veruca
Salt, the Cardigans and Papas Fritas. Viva Voce
is similarly accessible yet adventurous, but
unique in its adaptations of 21st-century
technology and a post-postmodern aesthetic, as
in "been there, let's see what's next!" It's
twisted optimism and the brightest possible edge
of darkness.
Heat's opening track, "Alive With Pleasure," is
a deconstructed smorgasbord, wrapping heavy
metal tropes, some '50s piano rock and squalling
reverb around an acoustic sweetheart of a pop
song highlighting Anita Robinson's breathy girly
chant, "Give it some time ... we'll be just
fine." "Mixtape= Love" is simply
beautiful--"Maybe I can't say these things that
I want ... hope you hear right past the
songs"--a must-own for anyone who needs Kleenex
to watch High Fidelity. Given the density
of their recorded productions, thick with layers
of electronics and effects, their duo-only
performances can sometimes fall short of
expectations. But Viva Voce understands risk: It
can always go either way. We'll be just fine
~Linda
Ray
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The Portland indie-rockers
in Viva Voce have a better handle on how copycatting should be done.
Beginning in Nashville as a bass-driven post-punk act influenced by New
Order and The Cure, Viva Voce expanded its style after moving
cross-country. For the 2003 album Lovers, Lead The Way!,
husband-and-wife bandleaders Kevin and Anita Robinson worked up broader
indie-rock textures, exploring coo, jangle, garage psychedelia, and
shuffling tempos. The group's new The Heat Can Melt Your Brain goes
even further, becoming at times a practical encyclopedia of modern rock
sounds. "The Center Of The Universe" hews so close to The Flaming Lips'
twangy space-rock that it's practically a parody, while "Business Casual"
sounds like every Lilys era crammed into one. "They Never Really Wake Up"
is a dead ringer for Air, "The Lucky Ones" could be a lost Spinanes track,
and more than a few songs possess a distinctly Pavement-like shagginess.
It's not a matter of
Viva Voce being better than its contemporaries because its influences are
better, so much as that they're more recent, and more affectionately
deployed. The Robinsons are interested in carrying on the non-mainstream
rock tradition of swapping styles and altering moods. Like Stealing Of
A Nation, The Heat Can Melt Your Brain has its own defining
song title: "Mixtape = Love."
~Noel
Murray
