Lanre Bakare 

Viet Cong: Viet Cong review – ambitious experimental rock, with tunes

Calgary’s Viet Cong connect the dots between experimental noise and indie rock with some skill, writes Lanre Bakare
  
  

Viet Cong band photo
Digging tunes out of the feedback … Viet Cong Photograph: PR

Viet Cong are a Canadian four-piece who – like fellow indie bods PC Worship from New York and Southend’s These New Puritans – dabble in industrial textures and noise reminiscent of Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle. Their seven-track debut sees them connect the dots between the two worlds and, perhaps where some of their forebears have failed, find tunes among the melee. There are moments when over-saturated drums meet Gregorian chanting and Magnet-style folk oddness (Newspaper Spoons and March of Progress), but the band are at their best when experimentation complements their songwriting rather than defines it. The time-signature-shifting Bunker Buster leads into standout Continental Shelf, which has shades of Television in its jangling guitar riffs excavated from layers of noisy feedback. While a couple of tracks start off as seemingly straightforward spiky post-punk, they develop into a super slow-mo synth dirge (Silhouettes) and an 11-minute funereal jam (Death). An ambitious and rewarding debut.

 

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