Thrice is one of the most influential bands for me to ever listen to. With their latest cd Vheissu I managed to go see them on November 13, 2005 at Club Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On their fall tour they had underOATH, The Bled, and a band known as Veda that opened up for them. They wouldn’t be anyone’s occasional favorite but everyone in that room of that show felt the power the front man, well actually girl, came out to perform with. Veda is:
Kristen May: singing, playing keys and guitar
Brian little: playing guitars
Jason Douglas: bass
Drew Little: drums and percussion
After this show I stopped by their merch booth and was actually curious on checking them out, they were something different and my ear took to its liking.
Upon listening to the first track on the cd, which is Trade This Fear, I remembered their remarkable performance and genuine sound which they lulled the crowd with. It’s not too much of anything special but with the soft guitar riffs mixed with catchy strumming, it caught you with Kristen’s voice. Which is dynamic, her voice pristine with the power that I can’t compare to anything else. She simply can pullout any note out of her and just leave you in awe. Bass lines here come in huge favor, you hear it and can’t help but to enjoy its good rhythm. Drumming is a bit simplistic but suits very well for an indie rock group, use of fills very lightly but keeps the good tempo and relatively hits perfectly with the bassist.
Best examples of their creative mixtures are the songs The Falling Kind, Lovers Lie, Moments Rewound, and Safe. These songs show the bands true potential and their creative style of music. It feels warmth and embraces other aspects of soft toned music with powerful vocals and equally strong band. They also use various other instruments and add good experimented guitar sounds and nice heavy bass lines which carry on their songs with good rhythm.
To name the few tracks that stand out, The Falling Kind stands out more than the first two songs (bad English? Correct me there if needed). Not for the fact it has the cool guitar riff in its breakdown but you can feel the passion Kristin sings with and feel the band and supporting her delicate orchestra. It’s truly phenomenal, and grabs me to listen to their simple formula that mesmerized. Lover’s Lie is a more upbeat song that catches a lighter part of you and just takes you in Kristen’s voice and the rests of the bands unique styles in their instruments.
Although most of the whole album is soft tunes and arguably simplistic, it really finds itself an original feel and tastes like a fine wine. Their music is crafted creatively to a mixture of Kristen’s beautiful voice and passion with the rest of the bands degree of soft powerful music. They also tend to keep an upbeat feel to the songs that makes it pretend to yourself it’s a summer day within your closed eyes, its truly unique.
What lacks though is the ending where it starts to drag down to slower tempos/beats. This is where you feel the generics of others band and the genre. Only 3 songs or 4 have this feeling which I find a bit irritating but may be enjoyed by others. A reason why it might found as irritable, it’s just played at to slow a tempo to catch on to, luckily they change tempos within these songs variably which balances it off.
Either way I highly recommend on checking them out or at least having you girlfriends listen to them than the pop/rock they listen to. The whole cd is quite well and something a bit fresh especially with Kristen’s dynamic voice. They add a very good of variety within the album and add a healthy tone of originality.
NOTE: The band did change their name for some confusion with another band and are now called Vedera. I did not list them under Vedera seeing that their released album is under their former name.
4/5
