How often do you come across a piece of music that you feel everyone should hear and be a part of? I am reminded of when I saw the Stereophonics in small venues before they hit big or when someone played High and Dry or Creep and other Radiohead tracks off the bends and pablo honey for the first time my love affair with the Joy Division track Love will tear us apart and watching the intensity of the Yellow video by coldplay.
Of course these are some of my favourite memories of to me ground breaking seminal music and I include the Sex Plimsolls in that of course. You will have your own thoughts dear reader and might even hate all the bands and tracks mentioned! I don’t generally go around recommending other peoples music with the exception of Lazarus by Porcupine Tree and ‘Deadwing / Blackfield as albums but I cannot praise Vib gyor’s “We Are Not An Island” highly enough it is so good it might even change your life.
In the Vibs work there is a depth of vocal content so moving that it almost forces you to play the tracks over and over again whilst searching for the beautifully intricate hidden meanings that are so cleverly and naturally disguised within each piece of musical art. The power of Vib Gyor’s music side I feel is slightly understated on the first listen as the vocals captivate your heart but as you listen again the musician’s strength becomes gripping and more of a fine landscape with each listen. Then after a while the panoramic width of each crafted piece hits you and you’re in love once again with good music done well. Independent music crafted by the band for its audience and fans is not dead it was only resting.
The album aptly titled We Are Not An Island may well capture a small part of your soul so beware you may end up wanting to give more of yourself, to the primal longings of this work of pure artistic merit, than you thought. Most people that have listened to the Album can understand why the band haven’t yet been signed and that may be a good thing really because in essence Vib Gyor still belong to their fans. Ok they sound a bit like a lot of other great bands, early Radiohead, U2 and coldplay but unlike many bands who just copy without understanding the consequences Vib Gyor take the whole thing further and make the feelings and presence purely their own. I started off liking them because to me their music was instantly familiar then I realised it takes real musical craftsmen to create and new sound whilst paying homage to other great musicians. For me a great band is one that can take the best from the history of music and move the whole ballpark to somewhere else.
I have to say at this point I am slightly scared that America will cotton onto the Vibs before the UK which for me would be criminal as Vib Gyor hark from Leeds and as a Yorkshireman I need to know they are OURS. Anyway enough of my fears the ten tracks of this their first album were a bargain for me at 10 pounds even though I had most of their work already its nice to receive the CD through the post and the cover was signed by all the band. I am just loving it as I have done since Michael introduced me to them about 18 months back. If I were you I would not tell anyone else until you have your signed copy of the Album – first 500 only apparently.
This work exceeds the sum of its component parts by a long way and superlatives escape me somewhat enough to say that the depth of this musical infusion onto the UK Indie scene may well get picked up by the students first again as the cult scene is where the Vibs are at the moment probably. In some regard I hope they resist signing with a major label and just carry on going it alone at http://vib-gyor.com sure they will get rich but they give me the feeling that it is always about the music first. Lastly beware tha they may wake up parts of your mind that you thought had died and you might even start crying into you cornflakes on some dark mournful evening in October.
The tracks are: Scanners, Red Lights, Tiny Daggers, Church Bell, Ghosts, Fallen, Ultimatum, Rhombus Suit, Take Cover and Long Way Down without exception I recommend them all to you.
The band are: Dave Fendick, Zane Keenan, Jonny Mulrock and Jonny Hooker.
I am just a fan Nias-LA2.
