Quick Before it Melts

Wednesday 17 February 2010

QBiM SPiNS: Sandman Viper Command, Everybody See This

February has been the strangest of months.  A lot of the new music I’ve been listening to seems to have a decidedly retro flair to it: The Stance , The Pinecones and Yukon Blonde all seem to have classic rock vibe going on, and the same is true of Burlington’s Sandman Viper Command, albeit a more contemporary retro sound.  Where those other band’s seem to take their cues from the 60s and 70s, Sandman Viper Command have a super cool mid-80s garage pop/punk-college rock roughness to them that reminds me of The Replacements on some tracks (like the sparkling “The Best of Plans”).

Everybody See This, the band’s debut album is like a nerve exposed to the elements:  it throbs, pulses and convulses, at turns with agony and heartbreak, at other times euphoric and blissful.  There’s a real variety and complexity to the songs, that move from the down-tempo lament of “Midwest Moses” to the frenetic “Ba Ba Ba” without missing a beat.  “Yo Bobcat” sounds like it could have easily been pulled off by Metallica in another incarnation (if it were louder and more sinister), and is one of the only times I consciously raised my eyebrow and wondered whether it works alongside the rest of the disc.  Sandman Viper Command are better when the play at the new-wave blues of “Oh Yeah, It’s Fusion” and “Mushroom Samba” and luckily the majority of the album fits that mold.

They’ve been compared to Sloan with good reason–they’re a certainly similarity in feeling and energy–but Sandman Viper Command have really staked out their own unique niche in the Canadian music scene.  Certainly they’re a band to watch in 2010, and watch them you can if you’re in Toronto tonight.  They have a show at C’est What tonight and another one on the 23rd at the same venue (as art of their Tuesday night residency there through February).  they’re off to Kingston on the 27th playing with Wax Mannequin, but will be back in the Big Smoke on March 11 for the Audioblood Showcase at the El Mocambo for Canadian Music Week.

MP3: Sandman Viper Command “Oh Yeah, It’s Fusion”
Myspace: Sandman Viper Command

by J. Di Gioia | 3 Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under MP3, QBiM SPiNS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.