THE VELVETEERS
A MILLION KNIVES
A Million Knives is this Boulder, CO Non-Binary, Queer Rock Trio's Sophmore effort.
OVERALL THOUGHTS: The rhythmic and sonic intensity accompanying the incredibly stout and furious lyrical rants might seem familiar but it is so unique in its presentation and stylistic approach that there is not a single track here you can point your finger toward and go that sounds like this. There is so much spread across every second on this album where at times you get this fantastic array of sprinkling sounds of Hole, Sonic Youth, Elastica, and Garbage. You even get some nods to Patti Smith, British 70s Punk, finished off with a touch of Lady Gaga and Blondie. Even a little Motorhead and The Runaways get into the recipes here. Even saying all that, make no mistakes, there is no homage being paid here, except to Lady Gaga who I hear had an influence on one track we will discuss. I give you those examples merely for a frame of reference while you adjust your seatbelt and get ready for one of the strongest rollercoaster rides 13 songs can take you on in a long, long while. I love the 'punching you in the face' approach in the musical accouterment. All while you fall prey to the subliminal sacrifice of the Department of Decency and Fillabuster as lyricist and vocalist Demi Demitro takes you a personal tour of Hell in sort of way that would make Ash Williams proud.
If you listen and hear the subtle pauses with the layered and lacquered lyrical satire, vitriol, and Dragonfire, then you will feel how quickly music can connect you to the red pill. The Velveteers may come at you with a million knives but they are so skilled with those throws that if you grow to trust them and never flinch, they will only wake you up and maybe graze you from time to time.
"It's just a flesh wound"
1. All These Little Things - is perhaps the outlier to the formula that proceeds it in the next 12 songs, as it easily is the most polished and radio-friendly track on the album but still, you get glimpses of what I mentioned in my overall thoughts right from the 1st second as the percussion comes crashing in like a thundercloud waking you up at 3am only to sprinkle a little rain on your head. This is far from skippable because it has such a nice cadence to it but it is the least meat you'll get on The Velveteers' sandwich, yet there is enough of it to know this is some tasty gourmet shit, not that freeze-dried Folgers crap. " Cause nothing has killed like you before" Yep here we go.
2. Suck The Cherry - Another punch in the face to just make sure you are awake that starts this track. A Stabbing Westward/Garbage-like synth that rips and settles into an almost metal riff. I have to say the drumming here is exceptional. There are times that when you backtrack a drum session it either gets lost in the shuffle or it just feels a beat off. Here on this track it not just sets a tempo, it uses the changes to bring in a softer moment and sometimes a loud crashing one. This is Demi Demitro warming up her sharp edges and jackhammer fists, and absorbing it takes us into truth bomb after truth bomb. It is earnest, reflective, and cautionary while being sarcastically playful. "Try everything that comes to your mind...But fame, fame, fame...Is gonna be the death of you."
3. See Your Face - Gives us our first guitar riff shrieking intro but it swims into a nice grungy post-punk tempo that gives us those examples I mentioned of the silent beats that lead into a punchy line. A nice old-school technique that really fosters the strong pacing here. I have a notion this will be a great live song.
5. On and On - the anthem of this album, and maybe for this group, could totally see this song closing every show. The chorus is one of those live songs that the band can stop playing and just let the crowd chant for minutes on end. This is the one that Lady Gaga inspired apparently. There is some incredible rhythmic guitar work in this one, more layered than most of the songs here. Where you get that nice stretching chord or the sound bend in the backdrop of the real rhythm keeping the pace. That sets a nice cadence for Demi to slip into and play around with whispers and screams. Beyond that merit though, as a song, this is one of the more direct lyrical statements Demi makes and least verse-wise, as it just rings into a chorus and beats you over the head with it. Nothing wrong with it.
6. Sweet Little Hearts - here is where the rocking style really has an incredible resurgence into this polished, complete masterpiece of a song. This song has it all, the tempo changes into a soft coy "Hey look at me I'm cute as I gouge your eyeballs out" into the fantastic strumming rhythms that push the tempo up a notch. This is also the first of any song on the album to have a bridge that shifts the whole song and whisks you away into Never, Neverland only to come full circle. This is what makes The Veleveteers so unique and clever, yet so familiar or at least slightly of hand-familiar so we embrace it.
7. A Million Knives - and now for something completely different. This title track really defines the evolution of The Velveteers for me. Forget that this ballad, which is gorgeous in arrangement, and heartbreaking lyrically, has a gruff softness and an interesting indie rock flare that sounds like a desolate, abandoned wild west town. Leading with a beautiful old-west guitar strum that you would find more on an Amigo The Devil album, accompanying the amazing vocal stylings of Demi's range. Showcasing that it is not as narrow as it may seem. The words are some I will soon not forget, "Some people call it art...A million knives to my heart...It's doomed from the start." Just breathtaking.
8. Moonchild - Just when you think you have gotten the most from this band they bring you into the psychedelic phase of their musical tour de force. With an almost Doom Metal gloom this awesome slow burn rips into a fantastic distortion that has some of the best lyrical moments of the album. This is another one of those that I found in heavy rotation on my playlists because it is close to what I listen to, more than not. Demi's voice is perfect for an acid-tripping-esque song like this. About halfway through it takes this unique bridge of "oh's" that punch up a great opportunity for freelance guitar riffs and strong drumlines.
10. Go Fly Away - Back to the more commercial type song but this one is one of those more Alternative/College radio plays types. Following the chorus, there is a great distortion guitar accompaniment that adds a nice decent into the song's reliable repetitive nature. It gives it a little more character. Again even when this band goes commercial it does something more than conventional as they put their own unique stamp on it enough to make it unskippable.
11. Up Here - feels like the extension to Go Fly Away, kind of as the guitar settles into a hazy note. There is something meditative about this song, it has a nice even keel and the lyrics are reflective and have this sense that the closure is coming. I like the awakening aspects of that sentiment and how the music feels like that thought too.
12. Heaven - sounds like it portrays itself in the lyrical reveal, a bit lost and all over the place. The distortion is incredibly heavy here and it kind of feels strange until it does a nice couple of moments of silence that allow Demi to hit a note or give a nice gruff expression that leads to a magical last minute & twenty that puts their foot on an anthem-y punch in the air.
13. Fix Me - starts as an inhale of retrospective and surrealism, as if we are coming down from the acid trip just long enough to let the speed kick in. At around the 2-minute mark we get one last burst of guitar and percussion thrash that leads to an interesting almost jam session, flailing about that seemingly finds a soft stop to land. Fix Me feels like one of those final pleas for whatever's in the head to stop throbbing, only to show it has its own ideas of what you might need. Much like a couple of songs before it, this stretch of the album has this uncanny way of expressing musically the feeling of this young woman and her trials and tribulations and how they aren't that unique but ever so lonely still.
There is something surreal about the last third of this album giving you those introspections and doing so with a sort of purposeful fumble in the words and instead punching up or down in an all-over-the-place distorted guitar and percussion flare or sometimes even a soft peaceful seance. The middle for me is where most of where I go back to but the really cool thing about The Velveteers is you can see they have a wide array of thoughts and emotions and they spray them like an Upper West Side Basquiat exhibit. Just like the famous painter you feel and see the exhaustion of just letting it all come out. These strong musicians give you everything they have and even when it seems just slightly out of reach or out of steam it never stops them from finding the right way to express it.
YOU CAN GRAB YOUR COPY OF A MILLION KNIVES HERE
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