Villain

Here’s a Christchurch based band – with their self-titled debut full-lengther. They sound like a young brood of musicians raised on nu-metal attempting shoegaze – they describe this as darkwave. One of those meaningless genre-names – they might as well be saying dogshit.

The opening squall of guitars and power-pop-strangled-into-noise, Castelvania, feels a bit like The Mint Chicks, possibly even The Clean and then just as things seem promising with this instrumental the rest of the album features the vocals of Shaun McTague.

Sounded like a 45 played at 33, sounding drunk, laconic, bored, removed – oh but wouldn’t it have been great if he had been removed – this vocalist’s brutal whinge ruins any chance this music has of, well, of being…music…

We’re left with shitty Battle of the Bands metal-lite dressed up in best graphic design attempts as shoegaze darkwave and where possibly you can look past the aural sludge of a vocalist attempting whatever the fuck he’s attempting you’ll only find a crayon-drawn attempt at post-punk tropes. Nothing lasting. Nothing worthy.

It’s available via Bandcamp for a name your price fee, which means you can still – no matter how low you go – risk feeling ripped off.