Artist: Vincent Vincent and the Villains
Label: EMI Records
Release: 2008
Vincent Vincent and the Villains are less a fun band than a goofy one: four electrified gents from London who try hard to be special but, sadly for them, don’t quite pull it off. Vincent Vincent and the Villains cling to an exclusive style-hustling approach that quickly drops them into the overcrowded bin of similar musical experiments, which, in today’s music world of worn-out genres, bravely try to discover something new, at the expense of reviving the musical values of the past, of course.
Gospel Bombs is a title that shouldn’t fool you. This is an album full of radical shifts in mood and emotion, and they’re anything but spin-offs of gospel music. Vincent Vincent and the Villains stroll carefree and full of verve across a sprawling genre palette, from bashful flirting with rockabilly influences all the way to the hot-blooded temperament of Latin-tinged rhythms, courtesy of a comically delivered flamenco. The gang is clearly having a blast. Maybe even too much of one, since the motifs, each in a different genre color, follow one another so disjointedly and in such a rush that the band never gets the chance to build toward a clearer sense of meaning in its own voice. Moments that, despite more than decent production, would earn a spot in the memory sector of your brain for longer than a minute aren’t exactly plentiful here. Maybe with the exception of Jealousy and bitterness, which, thanks to a clever mix of more concrete lyrics and the humor that comes with them, will probably get stuck somewhere on the way to Kurdistan.
Mr. Vincent himself can’t rescue the overall impression either. His vocal, self-assured but at times too withdrawn in a “Morrison-esque” way, does the general chaos of Gospel Bombs no special favors. Vincent, like his rowdy crew of weekend warriors, surely lacks a touch more individuality, which, in the whirlwind of already intense stylistic indecision, isn’t even the worst thing that can happen to you with Vincent Vincent and the Villains!
Lineup
Vincent: vocals
Tom Bailey: guitar
Will Church: bass
Alex Cox: drums
Production
Tom Stanley
Track list
1.Beast
2.Blues Boy
3.Sins Of Love (Wah Do)
4.On MY Own
5.Cinema
6.Killing Time
7.Pretty Girl
8.Jealousy and Bitterness
9.Sweet Girlfriend
10.I’m Alive
11.Telephone
12.End Of The Night
Album length: 36.07
