Already a frontrunner for ‘Scottish Album Cover of the Year’, the scribbled faces staring out from the blackness of Glasgow three-piece Victims of Ventriloquism’s Scarlet Impressions show they mean business.
After making a splash with last year’s Ishlairdigan EP and playing pretty much anywhere that’ll have them, VoV should be poised for a greatly expanded fan base with this release, and why not?
They’re young, eager, write good tunes and this EP could very well lift them to a series of ever-expanding horizons if everything goes well.
Unfortunately, proper take-off isn’t achieved for a while, opener ‘Parallel Lines’ is fun enough and flies by, but sometimes feels like a mish-mash of ideas that each remind you of a particular band, while the title track goes just a little too far in the generic drum solo, but shows that these guys can play their instruments and features much better twists and turns than its predecessor (and a key change?! Bloody hell).
Say what you want about their musical capabilities, though, they know how to work a studio.
The first two tracks feature staggeringly good production and atmospheric elements for a second EP before ‘Ashamed’ blows them both out of the water.
Smack in the middle of the EP, VoV revive, revolve and reshape the Ishlairdigan track’s original elements until it does what all-good re-imaginings should and sounds like a different song.
Where guitars and bass once interlocked awkwardly, a solitary piano provides backing and much needed dynamic range, and you can feel the song swelling and swelling until there’s a sudden shift back to vocals and piano again.
It’s the most captivating moment on the EP, and a shame (haha) that they didn’t explore these aspects further, but the effect’s still created.
It’s clear VoV are at their best when meddling with their creations, and these little details give the EP the much-needed layer of nuance missing from so many other Glasgow releases of a similar style; ‘Parallel Lines’s thundering piano in the chorus or Oasis handclaps in the middle eight, the depths-of-a-cave backing vocals in Scarlet Impressions, the synth-guitar in ‘Mink’, and the little time-signature ticks cropping up in the most delightful places.
And yet, somehow it doesn’t all add up.
‘Ashamed’ is still their best song, and making it the centrepiece ultimately divides the EP into a climb towards the peak and a not-so-smooth drop-off.
You can imagine these songs sounding huge, but not here; the production isn’t that good.
And that’s exactly the point, there’s only so much ground VoV can cover with an EP at this stage, but it’s done the crucial job as an advertisement for how great these songs can become live.
Ultimately, the one thing they need to do to properly showcase Scarlet Impressions’ worth is what they hopefully intend to do – gig the hell out of it.
Words: Andrew Maguire
