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Some bands take over the world all of a sudden. Others keep the hype machine whirring for a little while with a couple of cultishly revered singles before making their impression. Viva Voce, however, have come from Alabama via Oregon, releasing three albums and soundtracking a Motorola advert on the way, and still no-one’s heard of them. Indicative of their music’s quality? This album’s lead single, ‘From The Devil Himself’, would suggest not. With Sesame Street singalong melodies underpinned by major chords and handclaps, it’s just like Kurt Cobain’s faves, the inestimably lo-fi Vaselines, if they’d ever been arsed to get some proper studio time.
The ability to write cotton candy pop songs with only two members, a bloke and a girl, isn’t the only characteristic Viva Voce share with the Scots though. They’re just as patchy too. For every ‘From The Devil Himself’, there’s two tracks like album opener ‘Believer’; simple, whimsical, vaguely psychedelic folk. It’s pretty, it’s nice, but it’s nothing more. And that’s a description that could be applied to much of 'Get Yr Blood Sucked Out' – while Viva Voce have got plenty of ideas, they’re executed in the pleasant-but-functional style of the garage band you played in aged fourteen, when singer-songwriter actually seemed like a viable career option. The album’s psych-noise jams are best described as proficient, while the ornate Mercury Rev chamber pop of tracks like ‘We Do Not Fuck Around’ sounds calculated rather than emotional.
That said, there really are some true moments of beauty here. But by this stage in their career, you’d have hoped Viva Voce would be able to stretch those moments out over the length of a full album.
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