Review Summary: By the way, which one’s Violent?
Following up on multiple short releases since 2021, Violent Vira finally makes the jump to full-length with Lover Of A Ghost. The album features the sort of style blend that would do Deftones proud, rounding out a heavy alt foundation with elements of goth rock, shoegaze, and emo. The guitars and bass have more meat to them than before but the presentation is expectedly centered around angelic cleans, shrill screams, and all the manic flourishes in between.
While I’m not sure how much the narrative behind the album truly comes through, the longer runtime works to flesh out the atmosphere. In addition to the soundscapes on the intro and interlude rounding things out, the varied songwriting allows the moods to fluctuate freely and creates space to breathe. The songs themselves are pretty short and straight to the point structurally, but the musicianship is involved enough to keep the quiet-loud setups from running together.
The album also benefits from plenty of strong hooks and snappy pacing. Songs like “Missing Posters” and the closing “Chasing Ghosts” bookend things with a murky post-punk overcast driven by murky bass-heavy rhythms and swirling guitars that “Burn Me With A Bible” and “Saccharine” inject with explosive choruses. Songs like “Eat” and “Sex Narcissist” also stand out as biting patriarchal attacks ala Kittie. “Common Decency” and “Lil Crush” put the leanness to its most upbeat, breeziest surges, the latter almost dipping into the sort of gothic heavy metal that has come to my musical crack lately.
Overall, Violent Vira’s tight alt-rock is expanded upon nicely with Ghost Of A Lover. Part of me wonders if they could’ve cut a couple songs to lengthen some of the others or put in a couple more instrumental showcases, but such considerations are arbitrary. The band is a strong enough unit to sell these compact executions and enough conviction to keep from feeling like fluff. They were great when I saw them at Louder Than Life this fall and I’ll be happy to keep them on my radar.
