Times New Viking Born Again Revisited (Matador)
3/5
By: Liane Escorza
I like ‘noize’ and I like ‘noise’. But fuzzy, rudimentary, overly blown-out DIY noise I am not so sure about. I completely understand the raving appeal that Times New Viking create with their music - it sounds fresh, creatively dirty and no-nonsense angsty. But this whole idea of a sludgy home recording can also be seen as of a product made with little effort.
In fact, I am trembling with the thought that pop-garage bands will resort to this kind of aesthetic in their droves - If you don’t get it right, you’re risking your music to sound like demo trash. There is also the question of wanting to sound so unique and original and DIY and eco-friendly and pure and whatnot that the whole thing ends up stinking of pedantic vanity...
This is not yet the case for Times New Viking, but their muffled guitars, vocals and drums, recorded in a take and a half for their new album Born Again Revisited could do with an additional GP’s diagnosis.
So putting furious levels of grimy walls and sandy textures aside, it is pretty clear that this band are capable of penning down pretty outstanding songs such as ‘Born Again revisited’ with its pounding and raw pop, ‘No Time, No Hope’ at 2.51 the second longest song in the album which makes you crave for more, ‘Half Day in Hell’ with darker monotone vocals over Casio playful keyboards, ‘(No) Sympathy’, a proper punk shout-out anthem and ‘Move To California’, where guitar riffs takeover and give this garage tune the melodic edge that the band have incorporated in to this album in contrast with their previous work.
For Times New Viking, there is a sense that Born Again Revisited is both a rebirth of the old, and the first birth of the new.
Artists in this article: Times New Viking
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