There's Nothing In It

More thoughts you won't read about musicians you've never heard of.

EMPTY VESSELS - demo

Floppily discordant post-punk with a Duane Eddy twist is normally the kind of thing to get us tapping feet and smashing crockery with gay abandon, and when “Sex Disco” by Empty Vessels starts up it begins to look as though we’re in for something good. Somehow, though, by the time the vocals stroll in, the effect deflates like an unsuccessful soufflé. It’s certainly not that the vocals are poor – although they certainly were when we saw EV live recently – but they seem to be a collection of ticks and mannerisms from a bunch of other singers, without any substance underneath. At any given moment one can be reminded of Bowie, The Kinks, Talking Heads, The Fall or, most powerfully of all, The Psychedelic Furs. But not in a pleasant way. Not in the sort of way in which we’d be happy for EV’s website to quote that sentence as if it were glowing praise, let’s put it like that.

Luckily, the second track swiftly makes up some ground. The drums have receded into the mix, giving the vocal more space for slurs and warbles that, though equally affected, are more consonant with the music, which boasts quietly funky atonal guitar. By the time we’re onto closing track, “If It Came Down To It” the drums have returned but the vocals have wandered off mic, possibly into a studio cupboard. Can’t say we’re mourning with much vigour. The tragedy is, though, that the song is a big ball of early 80s nothing, strumming, jangling and delay pedalling around with no discernible ideas, and at this point we give up all hope, and start smashing the crockery in frustration. Empty Vessels could amuse you for 20 minutes on Sunday afternoon at Truck, but on this evidence they wouldn’t survive too well as the main attraction.