There’s nothing more inspiring than discovering the music gems of our home state. A band that strays away from cliché styles, using their instruments and creativity to take us somewhere we’ve never been, who could easily share the stage with any of the indie rockers known by the media and music fans across the country.
Voices Underwater (VU) does us proud with their self-titled debut, taking the art/indie rock moniker to another level. Digging deeper, the group uses organics, distortion, electronic bleeps and space-time continuums to blend their own chemical formula. Bare yet elegant guitar riffs give way to crunchy, rising skyscrapers of wood and wire.
VU’s inventive nature is apparent from track to track, and most evident in the trio trip of “Paws of Black Bears”, twisted with bristly pop rock that goes postal before washing into the ambient shores of “Those Who Know Do Not Speak”, which glides into the lovely snail’s pace of “Western Hymn”.
The unique vocals of guitarist Ben DeVoss round out their edges with a smoky polish, very much like the glass octopus that graces their CD cover.
