Red Vienna
Red Vienna (Independent)

Drummer Rob Zgaljic and vocalist-bassist Jahmeel Russell cooked up Red Vienna while they were touring together in the Black Halos in 2008, and much talk of “chemistry” ensued when they filled the guitar section with Russell’s Hawaiian Bibles bandmate Devin Boquist and former Manvil and full-time Welshman Mark Parry.

If you need evidence of that chemistry, they decided to hang a For Sale sign on a debut six-song EP that was only ever meant as a humble demo. And why not? It’s a powerful introduction to a band whose heart lies in the darker corners of early-’90s Brit rock, somewhere along the lines of Catherine Wheel rather than Slowdive. In the pounding opener, “The Best Words”, a wall of guitar and Russell’s implacable bass drive matters into the realm of Interpol trying to write like Sabbath.

But however much Red Vienna fans out into effects-laden slow-burners like “Low Lights”, there’s always a hook and a judicious guitar melody to make the whole shebang worth your while. The pop sensibility that underlies the final track, “Reprise”, is what you might get if au courant Canadian indie light-touchers like Two Hours Traffic or Library Voices had been reared on shoegaze instead of Sloan. Which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Download This: "Low Lights"