EP Review: Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart

I’m not sure about you, but once in a blue moon I hear a song and am struck by a sense of brilliant sonic balance that has been achieved somehow – something akin to a sensory perfection. It’s like the palate is suddenly, as if from nowhere, completely satisfied. Whatever this “it” factor is, it makes us want to listen over and over. (The last time it struck me was Wooden Shjips’ These Shadows, which I listened to on repeat 2000 times …. before that it was Midlake’s Acts of Man. (For me it’s always mid-tempo rock – ha ha.) My latest is the opening track from The Velvet Suns’ debut EP Rock ‘n‘ Roll Heart, Let Me Down.

This opening track – a mid-tempo acoustic/electric fuzz guitar ballad – has this balance and is anthemic and beautiful. It begins as it intends to go on – with direction and intent – but builds somewhat into a powerful song that, by partway through, I was imagining needs to be used in one of those season finales of a binge American TV drama. It’s a particularly strong opener to this, The Velvet Suns’ first foray into studio recording.

This Auckland band is Dean Mistry (singer and songwriter) Kathleen Mistry, Alastair Gibson and Steve McBride. (I think too that given what I said above, producer Louis Bernstone is due some serious credit too.) They’ve said the record is a something of a shrine to their love for 90’s indie guitar bands, built from fuzz guitars, thumping bass and drums. What’s not to love about that?

The second and title track Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart ups the pace with a hand-clapping and foot stomping piece of pure rock with the band in full flight. Next comes Touch and Go, a bass riff-driven power rock thing that I could imagine soundtracking some dangerous overtaking on Auckland motorways. Here Mistry’s vocals are processed and distorted, as are the layers of guitars that build into a fist-clenching conclusion. As if by contrast (though in reality not as stark as this may sound) the closer Caught in a Moment diverts into the disco-influenced land of pop-rock. It begins with on-the-beat bass line and wicky-whaa like Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. Mistry’s voice alternates between a classic 80’s baritone like Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan and a falsetto, and after not long the song builds, like the opener, into something of an anthem – in this case thick with backing vocals and keys.

This is powerful stuff and clearly has been made with great care and attention. From the composition and performance (great songs, well played and sung), the production (perfect for these sorts of songs, and expertly done), even to the cover of the EP (a reproduction of a hand-drawn anatomical diagram from a historical medical textbook), this is the work of a band that knows what it is trying to do and how to do it well.

It’s an impressive first record, and I hope they can give it the effort required to make whole albums with songs as good as this. Their work deserves to be picked up by radio stations and dare-I-say-it even some TV music scout looking for the next season closer.

Put it on repeat yourself and turn it up.