Better Luck Next Life

I went in wanting to love (uh oh) Victory and Associates Better Luck Next Life, but didn’t. 

 

Now what will draw to or alienate you from the album will be when you were born and what you listened to while you were alive in the 90’s. For me, I was alive back then and found myself gravitating more towards punk then the fuzzy crunchy guitars of grunge music, which was everywhere (and kind of nowhere). V and A will most definitely bring us thirty something and above adults back to that time. 

 

The overall sound is very Melvin-ish (what with Toshi Kasai in the sound booth), the guitars on the verge of Grung and Grung’s death rattles. It was very strange, but what completely turned me off from the album was the noisy production aspect. 

 

The bands sound could be stellar, but for the most part instruments are tripping over one another to be heard. I have a pretty good system in the car and I don’t think I heard lick one of a bass guitar. Drums sound off, guitars spend most of their time trying to outdo one another and vocals seem to be strained to make it over the top of the wall of sound. I wish the album had been better put together as I hear flashes of the Royal Bangs kind of intensity thrusting itself in there. 

 

In the end the album sounds like it has urgency, like the band is simply exploding in a an energetic rage from the collision made by a positive and negative outburst. Unfortunately the sound is all over the place leaving me to shrug and put it on the backburner until I have some real time to sort through what could have been. As always, final judgment is yours.