As a born and bred Rhode Islander, I tend to follow musicians and bands from the state. Velvet Crush, from Providence, came into being during the late 1980s. Bassist\/vocalist Paul Chastain and drummer Ric Menck had played together previously, and with the addition of a succession of guitarists, have been the core members of the band ever since (except for a two year hiatus).<\/p>\n
The band was a regular on the indie circuit during the 1990s and reached\u00a0their peak with the 1994 release of their second album Teenage Symphonies To God. <\/em>Now, they\u00a0have issued an album exploring their roots. Pre-Teen Symphonies <\/em>contains eight demos from the era and a blazing eight song live performance from 1994.<\/p>\n Six of the eight demo tracks are taken\u00a0 from the Teenage Symphonies To God <\/em>project. They present early incarnations of \u201cBlank Pages,\u201d \u201cHold Me Up,\u201d \u201cTime Wraps Around You,\u201d \u201cThis Life is Killing Me,\u201d \u201cStar Trip,\u201d and \u201cWeird Summer.\u201d The problem with demos is that while they are interesting to fans and provide a nice history, the finished tracks are usually superior and readily available.<\/p>\n The core of this release is the eight song live set, which was recorded at the Cabaret Metro in 1995, where they opened for the Jesus and Mary Chain. The sound of the three person core\u00a0group is enhanced by the addition of guitarist\/vocalist Tommy Keene. The set revolves around material from their first two albums. What were just presented as demos now return as finished songs. \u201cBlank Pages,\u201d \u201cHold Me Up,\u201d \u201cTime Wraps Around You,\u201d and \u201cThis Life is Killing Me\u201d explode from the speakers and cements their legacy of a 1990s indie favorite.<\/p>\n Pre-Teen Symphonies <\/em>is essentially two separate albums that form a nice document of the band. The demos are mainly historical, while\u00a0the live set is\u00a0essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":32866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9890],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44639","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-velvet-crush","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44639"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}