Violet Violet – The City Is Full Of Beasts

Reviewed by Mark Gomersall

There is a longstanding joke of inbreeding in the Norfolk area, and while Norwich based Violet Violet may not have any additional fingers you wouldn’t be knocked for thinking that the band were blessed with more limbs than your average human being. Originally beginning life as a trio, the band released their debut album “Bitchbox” back in 2007, since then they’ve gone through a line-up change, ditching the bass player and becoming a 2-person entity. The 2-‘man’ band is a set up that’s seemingly becoming more and more popular, with the likes of The Ting Tings and Blood Red Shoes making a breakout last year. In fact, Violet Violet do share a lot in common with the aforementioned Blood Red Shoes, besides lacking a Y chromosome and a drummer that looks like a failed experiment that’s escaped from a laboratory petri dish. Stylistically though the bands are very similar, mixing razor sharp female vocals and garage rock influenced guitar riffs in songs that are easy on the ear and exciting enough to get your feet tapping in an instant.

The first thing that jumps out at you about the songs is just how frantic it sounds. Even though the instrumentation is stripped to the core, it still sounds so exciting and big. The riffs are so catchy you’ll find yourself humming along to tracks like “One Little Problem” and “Twin On Twin” in no time. Then the vocal work begins the hit home. The harmonies, the interweaving vocal lines, the shouts, the screams, it all just fits together so perfectly, and no more so than in “C-C-C-Cat”. It is absolutely phenomenal, sounding as though it’s lifted straight from the early days of the Arctic Monkeys, with its snappy chorus and a verse that’s right out of the Alex Turner playbook, right down to the delivery and pronunciation of the lyrics. If you don’t have the urge to yell out “You stole my C-C-C-C-C-Cat” at random intervals you’re a stronger person than me (or probably not as drunk).

In indie-rock at the minute there seems to be two main trends. Either you’re so overtly quirky and twee that you could realistically borrow your nans cardigan and be heralded as a fashion trendsetter, playing songs that are so sugary that they could wipe out a family of diabetics. Or you’re a massively over the top prick, who once listened to “Out Of The Blue” by Electric Light Orchestra so have decided to layer everything with ridiculous synthesized strings because you think it makes your songs sound ‘epic’. So it’s honestly refreshing to hear an album like “The City Is Full Of Beasts”, where things have been stripped to the bare bones and Violet Violet explode with 10-songs full of indie-punk hooks.

Oh yeah, there’s also a really rather pointless remix at the end too. People still do hidden tracks? Seriously? They’re never worth it and just bring the mood down. They’re the musical equivalent of an Easter egg hunt where when the kids eventually find the eggs they’ve all melted into the grass and the dog has already been at them, who when they get back to the house is dead in the porch from chocolate poisoning.

4/5