Labels: Jade Tree Records
Review by: Luke Younger
Wise words here from GVSB. You actually can’t fight what you can’t see, because if you did, you wouldn’t know what you would be fighting, and there would be a strong chance of losing. Which would be rubbish. Also theres a chance that you wouldn’t be fighting anything, which would look very silly indeed. Anyway, on with the review.
A return to an independant label for GVSB, Jade Tree being a bit of an unexpected choice, but not a bad one by any means. From first impressions, this record doesn’t actually sound that much different to their 1998 commercial “disaster” “Freak on*ica”, it just sounds a little rawer. Although if you are expecting a hark back to days of “Cruise Yourself” you may be a little disapointed. While GVSB don’t sound like commercial MTV stars Filter anymore, they still bring in a lot of the dance influenced elements which made “Freak on*ica” a passable record (ie: theres quite a lot of keyboard work on this record). “Basstation” and “300 Looks for the Summer” could have quite easily been lifted from that record for instance, while “All the Rage”, “Kicking the Lights” and “Miami Skyline” are more in line with what the band were doing on the “House of GVSB” record. It’s also interesting to see that parts of this record feature GVSB at their most melodic yet! Parts of “Kicking the Lights” and “BFF” sound quite poppy, so it’s quite bizarre that this slight change in sound marks their move to Jade Tree.
A couple of average tracks, but on the whole this is a great record, probably one of their best, and the production work is fantastic. All I can really say is that if you went off them because of their last record, you may or may not like this one! They are touring here in November. I saw them recently, and they still play “the hits” so it will rule.