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Album Details

• Artist: Veal
• Album: The Embattled Hearts
• Label: Six Shooter
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-08-08

I've heard a lot about Veal in the past few years but have never actually listened to them. I was pretty excited when I found The Embattled Hearts in my mailbox one day, allowing me to find out what Veal is all about. Veal is the trio that is led by Luke Doucet, the Vancouver native who has already put out two albums as this band. The Embattled Hearts is a collage of styles that showcase Luke as quite a diverse songwriter. He gets compared to Rufus Wainwright in vocal delivery but more often than not on this album he is knee deep in rockabilly, ala Reverend Horton Heat. There are some tracks like "Toothbrush" that sound a little more like a Rufus knock off but Doucet should be held in high praise for his songwriting. He has chosen a wise and road-worthy band as well. Steven Drake (Odds, Tragically Hip, 54-40) was brought in for the production job and he did a fine job. The levels are perfect, vocals standing out when they need to and the instruments taking over the mix when they are the focus. So here it it, the album starts out heavily influenced by Reverend Horton Heat on the smooth "Defiler" and then slowly drifts away into a more straight up rock style about half-way through. One of the coolest tracks on Embattled Hearts is "Miss Brazil" and the first single is "I Hate Your Lipstick". Veal has provided us with a fine album that should make the hot summer days a little easier.

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