posted 07/13/2004 (Tue) @ 12:00 pm
>>> Music Reviews
My Vitriol - Finelines (2001)
A formula for underground success.
- Alpha Waves
- Always Your Way
- The Gentle Art Of Choking
- Kohlstream
- Cemented Shoes
- Grounded
- C.O.R.
- Infantile
- Ode To The Red Queen
- Tongue Tied
- Windows And Walls
- Taprobane
- Losing Touch
- Pieces
- Falling Off The Floor
- Under The Wheels
If you look hard enough and closely enough at anything, you can put it into a formula. Scientists are still searching for the ultimate “Grand Unified Theory” that explains exactly how the universe works, right down to the last upwards-spinning quark. Because, in all truth, formulas work. Formulas are useful. Calling something fomulaic is a way of complimenting its cold efficiency at doing, frighteningly well, what it was designed to do.
My Vitriol have a formula, too — though perhaps it would be more apropos to call it a recipe — and it works flawlessly for 16 tracks and 48 minutes because, unlike so many others, My Vitriol take influences like Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins, and shoegazing in general, and synthesize them into something that puts those influences on prominent display, yet which is completely their own. This is what sets them apart from the pack.
They’re a little bit Nirvana in the sharp sense of hard-rocking melody on tracks like “Cemented Shoes,” a little bit Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins with the chaotic tangle of interwoven lead guitar, and a little bit Catherine Wheel with Som Wardner’s approaching-ethereal singing style. Not to mention the generous reverb splashed onto these songs, which is where all the “shoegazer” comparisons likely stem from. Still, if “Loveless” cost My Bloody Valentine half a million dollars to produce, My Vitriol’s sound here is worth a million bucks.
Beginning with the embryonic, instrumental “Alpha Waves,” which is really just a warm-up for the furious “Always: Your Way” and its many peaks and valleys, “Finelines” never fails to deliver anything less than incredible in its 48 minutes. Hightlights include the dynamics-laden “Infantile,” the truly brilliant instrumental “Tongue Tied,” which manages to very subtly reference pieces of “Always: Your Way,” and perhaps the loudest moment on the record (aside from the not-so-subtle jab of “C.O.R. (Critic-Oriented Rock)”), “Losing Touch,” which still manages to mutate throughout the course of its three minutes with the same impeccable melodicism as every track here.
On the aforementioned technical side of things, the remixing the album received for release stateside shines on tracks like “Losing Touch” where the most important elements are emphasized cleanly and crisply for the benefit of anyone within listening range.
I’ve been listening to this album for three years and its still constantly near the top of my list when in doubt. Simply put, “Finelines” is a fridge full of just desserts. If you have any sense, you will love this album to death-from-overconsumption.
My Vitriol fans should also enjoy records from A Perfect Circle (”Mer de Noms”), the Deftones (”White Pony”), and Year of the Rabbit, all of which contain parallels to My Vitriol’s polished, sculpted guitar lines and ingenious songwriting on “Finelines.”
Also check out their B-sides collection, “Between the Lines,” which (as any devoted fan of any band would tell you) is better than 90% of other bands’ A-side material.
