The Vein: Monsters and Men

When the weather is the way it is here in Bombay (it’s finally fucking raining, and that too like a bitch), all I want is some chai (or beer, depending upon the mood and time), cigarettes (depending upon nothing at all) and some good ol’ rock music! Which brings me to The Vein. Just the fact that they hail from L.A. got me excited about them. Why? Well, it’s home to the Doors, of course!

Very heavily influenced by legendary bands across various genres like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and so on, The Vein do a good job of standing out on their own. I would describe them as a band which suddenly gushes out short bursts of ingenious energy.

“Tragos Oda, the first track on the band’s debut album, ‘Monsters and Men’, is a one-minute-long teaser. It asks you to anticipate something dark through the album. Quite a ‘gothic’ instrumental. But the very next song, “Agony”, is this bluesy number with some good but pitchy vocals by Jake Lucas (vocals) in the start, which he more than makes up for in the end. Amazing ending, but I detest the use of the flange effect on such songs. The next track, “Golden Child”, is something that wasn’t appealing at all. It’s quite an ignorable track. The name of the next song, “America’s Burning”, is the only thing about it that is hard-hitting. “Goodbye Innocence” has some more pitchy vocals, but the music is really, really good and the song has a live performance feel about it.

It’s amazing how some of the tracks affect you. You just want them to go on and on and on. “Deus Ex Machina” is one such track. A pure instrumental with some insane riffs, and all you want to do is close your eyes and let go. Even though the next track is one that I quite enjoyed, “Sweet Sin” spoils the flow of the album with it’s stark musical contrast to “Deus Ex Machina”. The intro is similar to “Roadhouse Blues”, and the track is quite awesome for fans of classic rock!

My second favourite track on the album after “Deus Ex Machina” is “Winter’s Bliss”. Quite Pearl Jam-ish, I love the rhythm guitars and it’s for the first (and maybe the only) time that you actually feel the vocals. The title track, like most tracks on the albums has some really attractive musical qualities, but the vocals lack the finesse to do justice to them. The same goes for the last two tracks of the album “Adoration” and “Summertime”. Infact, “Adoration” sounds a little odd just because of the whole Chris Isaak touch that the vocalist tries to deliver.

On the whole, ‘Monsters and Men’ features some really impressive music, but one could complain that the vocals are quite sub-standard. In fact, I think that is the precise reason that my favourite track from the album is “Deus Ex Machina”. It’s an instrumental! But all said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed my chai and cigarettes along with ‘Monsters and Men’.