VAUREEN
EXTRATERRA
(RISING PULSE RECORDS)
First full length from Brooklyn trio.
8/10
Vaureen mix up 80’s gothic with a 60’s psychedelic trip and thunderous moments of bad ass riffs. It all combines to create an excellent and interesting debut album. Andrea Horne’s vocals switch between dreamy and portentous to downright demonic, as on the opening track 60 Shades Of Cray, whilst Marianne Do and Cale Hand lay down some righteous rhythms for Horne’s guitar to both thrash out to and create melodic soundscapes. Stare Into The Sun has an alt-rock vibe, Mercury Flood has an off-kilter guitar sound whilst Forms is deeply heavy. Dig A Hole builds beautifully, creating an atmospheric soundscape, before things get dark on Apocalypse where the ‘city is a vampire’. The album ends with the epic Extraterra, which combines a primal music with psychedelic leanings, and the hint of a Morricone score. Good stuff.
This review first published in Louder Than War magazine issue 19.