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DECIBEL MAGAZINE (Issue 44):Think Motorhead covering Blue Cathedral-era Comets on Fire with Johnny Rotten on vocals. Think Kirk Fisher from Buzzon*en fronting Zen Guerrilla. Think our man GG dropping 10 hits of Orange Sunshine and then mercilessly buttfucking everyone in Royal Trux, pausing only to lay down some serious cowbell on "Shamanix". Or don't. It's not a pretty picture.
FROM JULIAN COPE'S HEADHERITAGE.COM:
JANUARY 2008 (MORE DEEPER):
those of a rock persuasion should deffo leave some space for MORE DEEPER, the head-scrambling pre-literate new offering from Baltimore quintet Vincent Black Shadow. Nine songs buzz by in just over a half hour, and you barely notice. Then, after repeated listens, the thing starts to obtain its hold and the murk gradually yields up scruffy unkempt flourishes of grunge that pose as guitar riffs and leave sonic oil stains all over your speaker cloth. What with signing to, then being dropped by Alan McGee's Poptones label and getting thrown out of the venerable South By Southwest conference, not much of note seems to have happened for Vincent Black Shadow since my Album of the Month 73 review, back in June 2006CE. So it's good to know their brief brush with The Man has only increased their shit-fi obsessions. Oh yeah, and you can cop this travesty from www.heartbreakbeatrecords.com
JUNE 2006(SELF-TITLED LP):
For those obsessed by the clod-hopping numbness of power trio-period Grand Funk Railroad, you gots to check out debut album by VBS (named after my late mate Pete DeFreitas’ fave ever motorcycle, by the way). As well as achieving early Blue Cheer-levels of whiny inept twin lead guitar bile, this whole VBS record features that fabulous dry drum sound so beloved of Grand Funk engineer Ken Hamann, who would later take his clumsy expertise to exert the same for Scott Krauss on Pere Ubu’s early albums. Singer Adam emotes as hoary and as hairy as the mad mountainmen mouthpieces of ‘69 legends Dragonfly and Josephus. This is essential shit, motherfuckers.
STONERROCK.COM:
More Deeper picks up where their self titled debut left off and kicks out some serious pissed-off and surly jams. More Deeper answers “What's the meaning of life?†with a resounding and defiant “Who fucking cares?†If you caught them on the road or heard their debut, you know where I'm coming from. If not, consider More Deeper the rallying cry for a generation that's finding out the hard way that nobody gives a damn about them
SENBALTIMORE.COM: This release from VBS is the undeniable evidence that will stand as proof of all the rumors and fables that surround Vincent Black Shadow. Where Mudhoney helped Seattle get a reputation for the music that was coming out of that scene, and Iggy Pop introduced the threat of death or dismemberment to the live show in Detroit, VBS pile it all together into a tasty package that can only come out of Baltimore
BALTIMORE CITYPAPER: Overall, MORE DEEPER is just some seriously fucked proto-grunge business that might have something to do with a gnarlier Mudhoney. Or maybe Sabbath with control issues, and way longer, rustier, and more chipped guitar riffs, drawn out in delays and effects that make everything sound like it's got either a stoner-metal prosthetic extension or some hissing whiplike razor wire pieced on. But, still, at its guts are still speedy, aggro lines that erupt out of the cannabis haze like sticks of dynamite in a bonfire, packed with little bits of scrap metal.
AQUARIUS RECORDS (more deeper): It's a throbbing testament to bouncing off the walls and breaking shit (and maybe rolling in broken glass and peanut butter). Ah, life's simple pleasures. File with such outwardly bound jams-kickers as The Heads, Cope's Brain Donor band, and Boris (circa Pink). But with more of an ugly attitude. Like maybe the Pissed Jeans wrestling with Plastic Crimewave. Nine tracks, a little over a half hour. On the short side maybe, but that still means the cops are gonna show up to tell you to turn it down (and stop stomping around, jumping off the furniture, disturbing the neighbors, etc.) long before the record's over. Which means...fuck the neighbors, fuck the cops... you're going to jail.
AQUARIUS RECORDS (self-titled): Definitely up the (grimy, dark, piss-coated) alley of anyone into Julian Cope's Brain Donor band... or Mudhoney, or Thee Hypnotics (remember them?) or, of course, The Stooges themselves. If swaggering drug-addled rawk with cowbell and blown out bass and wah guitar does it for you, that's what VBS does here pretty darn well.
AVERSION.COM: More Deeper's stoner-punk assault doesn't go so far as to glamorize the drug lifestyle, but, heck, if unstable molecules can fire up a punk band to do something like this, maybe drugs aren't entirely bad.
HYBRID MAGAZINE: This is the filthiest album I've heard in some time. I am not referring to the swears like "You ain't got shit on me," or other foul fucking language. It's the sound itself, the pornographic basslines, the obscenely fuzzy guitar, the overt vocal growlings. Why, after one listen through, I had to go finish myself off and clean up. Disgusting, I tell you. There's plenty of Stooge-y lo-fi howling, Black Sabbath instrumentation and garage rock inclinations. They steal a Nashville Teens tune and make it truly obscene. There's a slighty psychedelic undertone to pay homage to The Seeds, and even a bit of Steppenwolf. This shit is perfect if you're a smack-slamming skank-poking bearded biker. Or a friend of said.
I-94BAR.COM: This sorely neglected album from 2006 is the sound of methamphetamine users listening to the Stooge's "Funhouse" nonstop while on a two week binge.
FOXY DIGITALIS - When the cosmic wall is breached they maintain a gnarled bitterness and bile that keeps it out of the hippy swamp and barrelling straight at your throat. VBS are a nasty blast of oily rock and roll fit only to blow holes in your stereo speakers and leave your jaw hanging slackly.
RETROLOWFI.COM (more deeper): This album is an accurate aural depiction of this band’s ferocity, and, as a result, KICKS FUCKING ASS. This album is just… fuck. I’m not sure how else to describe it. You like loud, late-70’s hardcore underground psychedelia? No frills, balls to the wall, “holy shit, I am missing at least three teeth†sort of rock and roll? Great, Vincent Black Shadow is your new favorite band and More Deeper is your new favorite album. Congratulations.
RETROLOWFI.COM (LIVE REVIEW): Vincent Black Shadow from Baltimore, MD got the show rolling, albeit to a small, still arriving audience. Shame, really, cause they were awesome. Their Iggy-influenced hardcore psych sound just seemed to get louder with each song (though my ears may have just been getting more sensitive). It was dirty, it was raw, and it was completely chaotic, but the band was so tight that the whole thing crashed together beautifully.
