In the next few weeks I’ll be transitioning from my ‘early 30s’ to my ‘late 30s’. It’s not the end of the world, and 35 isn’t traditionally seen as being a landmark birthday, however I find myself oddly preoccupied with a wistful nostalgia for my youth, lamenting the long-missed opportunities that just passed me by. I’m just not the young sexy thing I once was (or I’d like to think I once was despite all the compelling evidence to the contrary!), and listening to the Push / Pull by Vuvuvultures is a harsh reminder of that.
Push / Pull is dark, synthetic, but it still boasts enough of a commercial edge to ensure that Vuvuvultures won’t be overlooked by indie-orientated radio stations and will go down a storm on any live stage, be it a sweat-box club full of their own converts, or on a festival stage, where they will inevitably convert a large number of those that have yet to hear them. It’s sultry, sexy and youthful (but in no way naïve) music, but that’s not saying that it’s an album that will alienate a mature audience, indeed chances are it will remind those listeners with a few more miles on the clock exactly how great some music can be if you let it take you by surprise.
The album itself captures the attention from the off with “Ctrl Alt Mexicans” and that is rapidly followed by the single “Steel Bones” and, truth be told, the quality doesn’t drop until the epic closer “Empurrar / Puxar” fades out into the distance. Push / Pull is not an album that suffers from a lack of ideas or ambition. In places it is widescreen in its scope, and elsewhere it can feel intimate to the point of it invading your personal space. The fact that it can do this and still hold together as an album without it sounding scrappy is a testament to the band, who after a rise through the underground and last year’s self-titled debut EP, sound as tight and well drilled as any young act out there today.
Vuvuvultures are an act that are at the start of what could be a very promising career, especially if the creative momentum of this debut album is maintained. They’re young, talented, sexy and have the potential to be whatever they want to be, and all power to them for that. Not that I’m jealous or anything…
