Sloppy: The New Tight
The Vultures make bad form sound oh-so-good
By Dan Barry
I tend to think of the word "sloppy" as a diss. There's a quaint allure to "trashy": "Hey, have you heard this Pavement tune? That riff is so trashy!" And "ramshackle" music can be sexy: "Venetian Snares' ramshackle breakbeats sounded like they were coming from a drum machine made of cardboard." But "sloppy" is just like, "oooh — bad form. Sorry, bro, but that was sloppy — try again."
And then I saw the Vultures, and my world changed. After a strange rockabilly intro, they shredded into three-chord punk like they had hooks for hands. But just when it seemed safe to call them punk — because, let's face it, you couldn't tell what the hell they were just by looking at them — they started playing this gnarly, hot-rodded-out surf shit. In fact, any time you tried to pin them down, they changed their tune, but never in a reckless, Mike Patton way. They just sort of greasily eased their way into the next part of the song. Come to find out, they've got it all down: Social Distortion-style cowpunk; Sabbathy doom-and-gloom; Zeppelin-esque largesse; nihilistic guitar solos that sound like a twelve-year-old eating acid for the third time this week.
But the key was this: throughout the whole set, there were these wonderful slippages that may or may not have been intentional. An awkward pause during a solo, a rushed drum fill — ordinarily these things are hallmarks of suckitude. In the Vultures' hands, though, they looked like the tools of enlightenment. And yet there was no trashy, indie-hipster charm about them, no attempt to make it seem like part of a trumped-up aesthetic. Observe: their guitarist looks like he belongs in a stoner metal band; their bassist looks like he came straight from a long day of preparing tax returns at H&R Block; and their drummer could be the everyman in front of you in line at Guitar Center. Do these guys rage at each other when they write songs? Do they peacefully coexist in some rock Valhalla before descending from their thrones for shows? I have no clue. All I know is that they play aggressive rock by and for people who want to shrug off the inconveniences of formulas.
