Veil Veil Vanish - Change in the Neon Light

1. Change in the Neon Light
2. Anthem For a Doomed Youth
3. Exile City
4. Modern Lust
5. Pharmaceutical Party Platform
6. Secondhand Daylight
7. This is Violet
8. Detachment
9. Wilderness

Veil Veil Vanish is a San Francisco-based band whose style is a mix of dark fast-tempoed post-punk with a shoegaze/dreampop sensibility. I've been very into them ever since I heard their debut EP "Into A New Mausoleum" and I was very enthusiastic to hear that they were releasing a full-length album. The said album is now in my very hands and it's excellent.

"Change in the Neon Light" generally doesn't try to reinvent the sound Veil Veil Vanish exhibited on "Into A New Mausoleum," but it polishes and develops it even further, making for an absolutely fantastic album. The album plays almost like a mixture of Disintegration-era The Cure mixed with 4AD records' early roster and spiced with a doze of fast-tempoed post-punk in the vein of The Chameleons, an acquired taste but an excellent one at that. The sound is characterized by strong, cold basslines, rapid drumwork, ethereal synthesizers, well-textured guitars and the voice of vocalist Keven Tecon which sounds deceptively like Robert Smith at times.

Where the album does depart from Veil Veil Vanish's formula it does it excellently: "Modern Lust" adds in an almost electroclashy sound, "Secondhand Daylight" seems to take a cue from Gang of Four for its rhytm guitar and drums, while "Wilderness" slows the tempo down a notch to bring the album to a close.

This is a nearly flawless album and it deserves every single good word I've said about it. If this were to be the only good album released this year it would be enough to carry me through.

Band: Veil Veil Vanish
Album: Change in the Neon Light
You'll Like this if You: Like the sound of The Cure's "Disintegration" but sometimes wish it had more balls and came at you like a wall of sound.
Rating: Five goth kids gazing at their shoes out of five.