Like many of us at the moment, the current state of the world has been getting to me and as a result I’ve not felt the motivation to write reviews or even listen to music. I’ve been promising to write this for a few weeks now so I figure it’s finally time to get myself out of this funk and get some work done. And what better band to bring us back to the light than Television Villain. They feature a variety of styles across their discography but the single I want to highlight as their best is the atmospheric stoner rock track “Technicolour”.
Technicolour begins with some unusual world percussion reverberating around your mind, and just as you are about to get used to it, a brilliant slide guitar and backing vocal combination obliterate your senses. Yet the underlying bass and drum groove keep it all together. The haunting, eerie vocals sounding like the forbidden love child of Chris Cornell and Kurt Cobain. The swirling guitars drop in and out through the multiple verses and choruses, coming to a manic crescendo by the end of the track. Each instrument is doing exactly what they need to do at any given moment. It’s very difficult to write decent original rock music these days. Rock has been around since the fifties and many thousands of songs have been written in that time. It is now down to the sheer brilliance of songwriters to keep rock alive. What Television Villain have done here is nothing short of remarkable.
This combination of late sixties progressive rock and heavy nineties grunge has been done before. But very few bands have pulled it off with such style. Ironically, Television Villain seem more to me heroes than villains. For who but heroes still devote themselves to the art of rock and roll in a world that does not want them anymore? Television Villain wear their alienation like a badge and you can feel it in the atmosphere of tracks like Technicolour. I insist that anyone who shares my deep love of music to check these guys out.
Peace, Love and Cowbells,
Oscar