GRIP-LIKE VICE – EP REVIEW

Grip-Like Vice – Get Super EP 

Grip-Like Vice - Get Super EP

Release Date: Out Now

Saint Austell quartet Grip-Like Vice have been blipping away on the edge of my radar for a while now but they started advancing rapidly towards the centre, like a torpedo, with the release of their new EP, ‘Get Super’. Despite what looks like a mock up for the new Burtons advertising range on the cover, there is something about the colour and vibrancy that these four bring to a release that is hard to ignore, let alone resist. The first of the six tracks is ‘Passable Face’ and it soon hits it’s stride with choppy guitars and wonky synths wrapped around a smooth indie vocal delivery that puts this somewhere between the Automatic and the Feeling in the indie-pop spectrum of things.

Just to keep you on your toes, ‘The Mystery of Mr. E’ plays with the preconceptions of indie-pop by throwing in a beefy rhythm section break that is more Rage Against the Machine than Scouting for Girls which is the direction the rest of the song takes. ‘Superguy’ opens like a reboot of ‘Strawberry Fields’ but soon unfolds as genuinely endearing and terribly English lament with real heart and a sense of humour. On ‘Ambulance’ the guitars get more choppy and urgent, like a Weezer track, until the Young Knives-esque element of British observation takes over and the song veers off in a new direction. This is a talent and a habit for Grip-Like Vice on this record and, if this was a child, you’d probably be diagnosing ADHD but that’s something to be cherished and embraced in a creative spectrum so let’s not dwell on this too much.

As the EP nears the end, we get ‘Change’ with it’s stuttering guitars and Squeeze-like vocals at first hesitant but then growing in confidence and purpose as it calls on the world to change and refocus on the world – an ambitious effort for two minutes and forty seconds of song. ‘Vendor’ closes the EP and it continues on a theme of change which gives this collection an overriding sense of needing to release energy, make a difference, take a new direction or just do something to liven things up. If you want an EP that’s going to pick you up, shake you by the shoulders and demand your attention through sheer energy and ideas then ‘Get Super’ might just be the one for you.


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