on 2010-02-06 Zakerias Said:

Rating: 5/10

Review:

on 2010-02-06 Zakerias Said:

There's always a band, slipped through a crack somewhere, that you wonder how you've missed out on for so long once you find them.

Venus Bogardus has been a gem of a find for me in this way. It seems that wherever they were hiding must have been a really dirty, gritty and noisy sort of place... but there surely had to have been a comfortable spot to lay the tracks down just the same.

A spoken-word intro (that isn't cheesy) prepares the highly overdriven guitars paired with abrasive and "talking, but loud and oddly in key" female vocals to begin this 2008 release of "Motorman" off with a track of the same title. Catchy guitar riffs, nicely thrown in time screw-ups and the sudden urge to move around let themselves in immediately. Rude, yes, but still very welcome.

Onward, this album takes it around with a lot of different ideas and sounds that almost make the atmosphere a little uneasy at times in all of the best ways. The vocals stay wobbly and nauseous sounding, reminiscent of Nervous Cabaret, while the music itself stays solid in most respects and keeps the earlier mention of grit around constantly, even through the 'cleaner' sections of tracks.

This might not be an album to obsess about, but it definitely has an odd feel about it that makes you want to keep listening on. In my book, that's still a good album, regardless of my ultimate thought of it in the end:

I think that if anything, it will be the vocals themselves that make Venus Bogardus stick out a bit more above other bands, because where the music generally is good; There's just not that much that's very special about it if you're familiar with this sort of sound from a higher caliber.

At any rate, 'last.fm' allowing me to listen to this album online (Check it out here) still has me wanting to purchase "Motorman" and their latest release, nicely titled "Spitting At The Glass", which I have yet to look and find samples from.
Rating: 5/10