Violet Violet - The City is Full of Beasts

 

At its heart, punk ditched glam spectacle for raw emotion, rejecting bourgeois musical virtuosity because it had nothing to say to the disaffected youth in poverty. Unfortunately, history has shown that spittle-flecking the microphone in fury is no more a guarantee of writing a good song as is being able to finger tap at 30 notes a second, a lesson lost on those who have the crude guitar skills, but display little originality. Violet Violet, a post-punk riot grrl outfit, aren't quite this bereft of ideas as they furiously bash through an album's worth of power-chord pouting. It's certainly feisty and spiky, with tracks C-C-C-Cat, Dick Van Dyke, and The Crush being particularly bruising and abrasive (ably powered by bone-crushing drumming- unusual for the genre). Indeed, they almost pull it off on attitude alone- but in the end, even punk needs an occasional hook to draw you in, instead of just beating you into submission. [Ewen Millar]