| CD REVIEW The Sedan Vault |
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Band : The Sedan Vault Three years ago this Sterrebeek based Belgian quartet [consisting of the Meeuwis brothers Frederik (bass, vocals), Rutger (guitar, vocals), and Marius (piano, keyboards, samples, vocals), plus Johan Buyle (drums)] amazed skeptics and unbelievers in the possible worth/ impact of a band from our small country on what is at best called the Experimental/ Avant Garde Post-Hardcore scene…when they released their debut album Mardi Gras Of The Sysiphus on Funtime (a label usually seen as bringing rather typical Punk Rock stuff, but occasionally – like with The SV – bringing something extraordinary indeed!). It all started earlier in this century, when Rutger, Marius (then still the bassist), and Johan played as a trio in the band’s precursor Mawkish, who got to the finals of Humo’s Rock Rally (one of Belgium’s highest profile Rock band contests) in 2002. Then Marius decided he could add something more if he’d play piano and keyboards (obviously, that would turn out to be the turning point in their musical career)…and Frederik, whom had meanwhile learned to play the bass guitar, gladly took advantage of the occasion to push his way into the fold! The first recorded outing of this new outfit came with the 2003 mini-CD demo Age Of Aquarius. Following the Mardi Gras Of The Sysiphus album, the band took the Belgian music scene by storm, getting spots on the country’s biggest festivals (Dour, Pukkelpop, Maanrock, etc…), enormous amounts of airplay, interviews in most important major magazine and journal paper (De Standaard, De Morgen, Rif-Raf, Metro, etc…), playing countless club shows on a regular basis as well as playing aftershows for the likes of The Mars Volta and Death Cab For Cutie at Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique (where they’ve since become the “house” band). Described by Funtime as something that “sounds strange like The Mars Volta, angry like Black Flag, nocturnal like Nine Inch Nails, muddy like Barkmarket and nostalgic like Sigur Rós and the electronic Radiohead”, The SV songs are entities which take a long time, and numerous rehearsals (which are not only used to add/ substract new ideas to their music, but also as a means to practice songs until they’re known from start to finish), to grow to full age (which is a highly complex one, I tell ya!)! That, of course, is why it took the guys three years to write a new album! To give my own description of the band’s music…would simply take me too long! Soundtrackish calmer passages are counterbalanced with exploding moments in a rollercoaster mode, and to make matters even more confusing, the band adheres the same practice of glueing their separate songs (this time around, that’s 10 pieces) together as they do during live appearances! Of course, there’s a couple of moments which really shine out, like the short (only 85 seconds) album opening “Cockney Krasherz”, which has a spoken word intro (in local Flemmish) brought by Arno and overlain only with Ambient piano, albeit getting a sudden guitar outburst towards the end! Somewhere during “A Rave To Every Home”, the underlaying bass/ synth tones are somewhat remeniscent to the attack scene of the movie Flash Gordon (soundtrack provided by Queen, remember?), and equal such “samples” occur in other songs as well! You can definitely say the band’s continued to explore their experimentaions a little further even than on their debut (which, of disgrace, I’ve had at home for two years, but never gave a listening session before last week…when I knew that the band’s new album was gonna come my way for reviewing!). Take the weird recording manipulations on the vocals in the second part of actual album opening song “Communism By The Gallon”, forinstance! But hey…see what I meant when I told you it would take me too long to give my own description of this album? I mean, there I go shooting off my mouth again! Nay, best then I immediatelly tell you that you can actually listen to “Communism By The Gallon” and the rather electronical sounding “Unidentified Flying Subjects” at myspace.com/thesedavault…where you’ll also find a comprehensive list of music the band members listen to for influences…quite an eclectic bunch of things from which you’re bound to find an influence here, another influence there…and then some…because no matter what influences, no matter what comparisons music journalists may wanna try out (usually to facilitate their own job), The Sedan Vault is quite a unique experience to listen to! Hey, vinyl junkies…yeah, I know you’ve been holding your breath since the top of the page (where I mentioned the album is also available in your favourite medium)…so, the album will also be available in a limited rotation of 500 vinyl copies! 350 of those will be just “plain” black vinyl, but 100 will be coloured vinyl, and 50 will have two colours! I’ll tell you one thing: you’d better run to the store as quickly as possible to order your own copy of this great album, because come next chance (which will be tomorrow) I can asure you at least ONE of those 500 will be added to my own collection! Hah…and when you see me make such a remark, you already KNOW that Vanguard is being added into that “best Albums Of 2008” list of mine, right? I mean, anyone with some taste in good and complex music would do the same! 98/100 Tony. |