Jagged melodic
Cardiff art-rockers The Victorian English Gentlemens Club have a darkly poppy sound, very lo-fi, very fuzzy but often pretty tuneful and melodic. Their tunes are fun and energetic with a quirky inventive edge and are intentionally gritty and fuzzy ��" they tend to emphasise this through their use of only ‘real’ sounds, never resorting to using synths or samples always finding another way to make the sound they want. This always gives their records a live feel and a very raw sound.
This second album is far more cohesive and listenable that their debut (on which they sounded constantly on the edge of crashing into a tuneless mess), they have brought together their love of challenging, brash and abrasive alt-rock and mixed it with solid melodies to create something actually pretty decent and their technical skills have improved ten-fold meaning that they can actually pull off the off-kilter sound they favour.
Tracks worth checking out from the record are ‘Watching The Burglars’ which is the second single taken from the album and has an Adam and the Ants, pop twang, it’s an accessible and immediately likeable track with a super-catchy chorus; ‘Driver’s Companion’ has a Pixies feel; ‘Parrot’, also a previous single has a throbbing bass line and a minimal new wave sound and ‘God Save Us From Being So Damn Primitive’ is dark, nasty and atmospheric with a really nice little piano line.
“Love On An Oil Rig” shows what this band are capable of and it turns out that they’re capable of producing some great tunes. Well worth a listen.