Album Reviews |

Vincent Vincent And The Villains



Gospel Bombs 7½ ( 2008 )
Beast / Blue Boy / Sins Of Love (Wah Do) / On My Own / Cinema / Killing Time / Pretty Girl / Jealousy And Bitterness / Sweet Girlfriend / I'm Alive / Telephone / End Of The Night

Nostalgia for the rock 'n' roll years was the key factor to Vincent Vincent And The Villains formation. They took a couple or three years honing their material before unleashing 'Gospel Bombs', their debut LP. At times, they come across as Kevin Rowland of Dexy's Midnight Runners fronting a doo-wop tribute act - but that's actually no bad thing. There are a number of clear standouts here among other tracks that grate a little, to be honest. I'm not sure there's much of a future for the band unless they change tack radically next time around, because i'm not sure where else they can take themselves stylistically. Still, 'Gospel Bombs' is by no means a bad album and actually is something of a breath of fresh air when played next to Kooks or The View and the like.

Not too many bands do doo-wop these days and Vincent Vincent And The Villains do it amazingly well on the three or four more obviously doo-wop styled tracks on the album. In this vein, first up is 'Blue Boy'. The singers throatey warble gets a good workout and the guitar lines are small and catchy, if that makes sense? It's actually something of a stunning tune, very joyful. 'On My Own' is the same kind of thing and in a correct world Vincent Vincent And The Villains would be topping the charts instead of Sam Sparrow or Madonna. A real gem comes up with 'Killing Time', a song about listening to records, appropriately enough. 'Roy Orbison's voice fills the room', he sings, and why not? Rounding up doo-wop tunes is 'Sweet Girlfriend', very straight kind of 'Doo-Wop' heavy on vocals, light on instrumentation.

Other things i'm impressed by? The guitar lines and bass lines are joyous and the closing tune, 'End Of The Night' something of a regular stand-out, oweing little to the doo-wop or rock n roll sounds elsewhere. Maybe they do have somewhere to go, after all? A short, thirty five minutes is 'Gospel Bombs', but any longer you'd get tired. The sound doesn't vary dramatically across the albums twelve tracks and the singer uses much the same throaty vocals throughout. Still, this is certainly an interesting diversion and worth picking up if you want to vary your record collection a little.

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