VR SEX
Hard Copy (Dais)
Los Angeles’ VR Sex began as a one-man operation and as of third album Hard Copy is a quintet. Beyond the initial one man, name of Andrew Clinco, it’s kept fairly obscure who the other four are, although Aaron Montaigne – a revered name to a certain kind of 90s emo/hardcore enthusiast – seems to be one of them. Clinco himself goes by the alias Noel Skum, an anagram which like the band name could ‘say something about the age we live in’ if you squinted, and altogether the impression is that VR Sex are not looking to reach a mass audience with this release.
I emphasise this not because I think they should aim for that, rather that I think they could. The album’s sound is overdriven and ear-ringing, sometimes nodding to goth rock at its noisiest, but by virtue of its many large and infectious hooks has its accessible side too. Dictionary Talk, which opens Hard Copy, and the later Space Invasion each have choruses which could grace any given early 80s new wave hit – while the big lumbering riff of Inanimate Love is like Nevermind-era Nirvana making their Black Sabbath fanhood plainer still.
With Clinco’s other band, eccentric shoegaze/synthpop duo Drab Majesty, having a solid fanbase of their own, VR Sex may find favour thanks to that link alone, but Hard Copy is one for rockers of many persuasions.
words NOEL GARDNER