The Beat Surrender

I reviewed the debut EP by Vincent Black Lightning and you could tell they had something about them back then, they might not be fresh faced indie kids who are coming into this dreaming of making it in the industry, but that surely means they are doing it for the love of producing the music they want to get out to people.

It’s a love that bears fruit on their debut album Songs From The Underbelly Part 1, no not every track is an absolute winner but most are finely crafted and well written tracks that when combined with the old analogue equipment they seem to have been recorded on, means you feel like you are listening to something very real.

The album has a definite feeling of stepping back in time, not just to a by gone era but to a different country as well, the understated nature of the songs and lack of polish (in a good way) remind of listening to recordings by Robert Johnson and Woodie Guthrie, peope who didn’t need fancy studios, just sang and played from the heart.

which is exactly what you get here and never better than on my two favouritres In From The Sidelines and Engineering Days.

Oh and if the current scoring system would let me it would be a three and a half out of five not a three as well!