music review

Dark Violence of Beauty ::: "At the Sign of the Pink Flamingo"

gothabilly- rock

This is the debut independent release of this Canberra group who describe their brand of music as "gothabilly" - a cross between gothic and rockabilly - which is certainly a very befitting description.

Something that struck me immediately is DVoB's definite "Australian" sound (a good thing!) among the likes of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, early Died Pretty, the Wreckery, Crime & the City Solution. Although, to give them credit, DVoB avoid the pretentiousness which is characteristic of so many bands of those bands.

DVoB's instrumentation consists of warmly distorted guitars, bass, drums, an occasional keyboard wash-effect, and the crooning vocals of Scott McCann and Rod Stewart. The album has a real live-band energy to it, which is certainly refreshing if you are over-exposed to perfectly quantised electronics most of the time. Many of the tracks are also quite hypnotic via the looping/repetitive moodiness and ascending intensity of the guitar parts and song structures.

My favourite tracks are "Catherine Pt.1" and "Repression" (which both have a dark early-goth feel to them), "Cold Wet Sunday" and "In your Head" (real croons), "Bordertown" (with its wonderful warm feedback), the up-lifting pop-song "Phoenix" (which strikes me as an obvious single candidate) and their way-cool cover version of the country classic "Ghostriders in the sky" (yippee-yi-yay!)

DVoB state in their c.d. jacket manifesto: "... The songs on this album grew out of the belief that whilst our world is often an oppressive and unattractive environment controlled by groups of selfish and power obssessed individuals, every experience we undergo in it is spiritually and intellectually worthwhile."

If you appreciate guitar-based gothic-country-blues with melodic dark crooning vocals then this release is bound to please you. It is available for $20 Aust.+ $6 postage & handling:

Tormented Kitten Records - PO Box 871 Civic Square ACT 2608 Australia.[email protected] www.darkviolence.dynamite.com.au