Bad Visions - Bad Visions (16/12/2014)
Bad Vision is the kind of band that wants to sound as noisy and seem as untamed as possible. They don’t care about things like accessibility or clean, precise production, and this lack of care is something they pride themselves on. As the Melbourne band’s bio declares--“You won’t hear it on an indie-mag compilation. You won’t see it on pedestrian tv.”
That’s not to say Bad Vision aren’t accessible, because, in a way, they are. It just doesn’t seem to be something they think about much. The opening track from the band’s self-titled debut, ‘Dirty Blood’, is a great example of this. The track is upbeat, and the guitar and bass lines collaborate to create a sense of liveliness. It is almost danceable. It’s as if Bad Vision has taken pointers from bands like The Strokes and The Hives and then combined those elements with something darker. This addition is something that grows as the album goes on, as if it were something parasitic. |
Bad Vision’s rougher edge only partially communicates the high esteem the band clearly has for rock and punk greats. However, it is fully realised through the band’s approach and general attitude, as well as through the rawness of the recordings.
The album may be 14 songs strong, but most of the songs sit around the two to three minute mark. For about the first five tracks, the album comes across as pretty solid. After this point, I felt the release started to suffer a bit due to a sense of sameness which settled. It was as if I was hearing the same songs being rehashed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for all listeners though.
If you listen to the album and think Bad Visions are absolutely killing it to begin with, then I can assure you there’s a heap more in store for you. If you do start to feel a bit like I did shortly after ‘Blind Eye’, at the very least I would recommend skipping ahead to ‘Fishbowl’. That one’s definitely worth a listen.
Nathan Fioritti
The album may be 14 songs strong, but most of the songs sit around the two to three minute mark. For about the first five tracks, the album comes across as pretty solid. After this point, I felt the release started to suffer a bit due to a sense of sameness which settled. It was as if I was hearing the same songs being rehashed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for all listeners though.
If you listen to the album and think Bad Visions are absolutely killing it to begin with, then I can assure you there’s a heap more in store for you. If you do start to feel a bit like I did shortly after ‘Blind Eye’, at the very least I would recommend skipping ahead to ‘Fishbowl’. That one’s definitely worth a listen.
Nathan Fioritti