His & Her Vanities

When Ricky and Terrin Riemer had their second child in 2004, the music of His & Her Vanities got put on hold. But they and their studio/label, Science of Sound, barely took a break as they began to take bands such as Sleeping in the Aviary (and their various incarnations) and Pale Young Gentlemen under their wings. They must have had some opportunity, however, to take a good look around; internalizing all the events taking place in the world at large. The Mighty Lunge is a huge welcome-back for the band, although it contains just eight tracks and clocks in at just under thirty minutes. But that’s enough time to make plenty of observations and, if you could sum up what’s going on lyrically in one statement, it might be, “this place is a mess.” Even the cover is unsettling with its nightmarish image of the world giving way as we try to cling to survival.

Ricky’s angular, interlocking guitar lines are still the main musical feature here. There are no keyboards and, with the addition of guitarist Matt Alplanalp (Transformer Lootbag) in performance, what you hear is pretty much what you’ll get live. That’s not to say that there isn’t any savvy production going on. His & Her Vanities, and Ricky in particular, are quite sophisticated, adding layers of instrumentation and vocals and building the tunes into glorious cacophony. Guitars relentlessly down-stroke in quarter-notes while the vocal lines are drawn out over the top. Though the band has been compared to Devo in the past, The Mighty Lunge sounds much more like the Strokes or Flaming Lips.

One song in particular sums up the themes of psychological warfare, circular moods, paralyzation and confusion that are reinforced throughout. “Fragments” churns along in the band’s familiar, self-described post-punk/pop-rock style. “It’s hard to swallow everything / Without it taking over me” is typical of the observations made throughout the album. “Everywhere I turn there’s something / With broken parts underneath… / And if I lose my sense / I will be left in fragments.” These words could apply to the warrior in the battlefield as well as the civilian at home, trying to make sense of what’s going down.

“Hits Like Hail” is another highlight: “It hits like hail / Driven farther than a nail / Devoured.. / You can’t cut strings / When you know you’re gonna sink.”

“What it Is” brings the Flaming Lips to mind the most, building to a rousing climax. Here “there is nothing left to contemplate / Nothing left to shatter.” It’s not devolution, but the feeling that we’re getting the constant runaround, so “why change fuses?” as the band sings in “Fuses.” Or consider the confusion portrayed in “New Designs: “The weight that hides behind the brace / It keeps us all in place / Misleads and makes you think that it’s alright… / But no it’s not.” The band has really ratcheted up the lyrical content here and it pays off big time.

The real trick is how they make all of this bleakness so toe-tappingly fun. The music percolates and the melodies impart an uplifting optimism. The inside sleeve is adorned with harmless drawings of a dragon and robot (courtesy of each of the Riemer’s two kids) and there is a sense of innocence that somehow pokes through the giant mess of a situation that we’ve so obviously gotten into. Maybe it’s summed up best in “Wait it Out.” “Underneath the sunlight there is darkness / Underneath the darkness there is sunlight.” If we’re captive hostages to the world’s authoritarian whims and systematic cycles, maybe we can wait it out until the next glimmer of sunshine gives us that slim feeling of hope. The Mighty Lunge makes a strong case for resolving that the cycle must be broken by pointing out the futility in the status quo. - Local Sounds Magazine

His And Her Vanities tumbles and screeches into cleverly bent-up pop that shows a clear love for the jarring sounds of Brainiac and Enon. Most of HHV’s tunes, though, keep it a bit more sweet and catchy, not getting overly caught up in mechanical new-wave weirdness. That's especially true of the band's new third album,The Mighty Lunge. It took five years of on-and-off work to complete, mostly because band founders Ricky and Terrin Riemer were busy raising their kids and putting out other Madison artists' work through their Science Of Sound label. The wait pays off emotionally in some of the band's most direct, accessible, and warm songs to date. -The Onion A.V. Club, Madison, WI

Link: http://www.avclub.com/artists/his-and-her-vanities,32695/ - The Onion A.V. Club

"Pop to be experienced through headphones, obsessively, and with the blinds half-drawn." -Jacob Price, Delusions of Adequacy

Link: http://www.adequacy.net/2009/11/his-her-vanities-the-mighty-lunge/



- DOA

While the arty His & Her Vanities owes a great deal of its canon to post-punkers Devo, the spirited recklessness of the Pixies, and even the pre-punk innovators the Monks (via drummer Sara Winkelman's aggressive and tribal tom-heavy approach to percussion), it would be severely unfair to dub the group as a carbon copy of anything. On its energetic self-titled debut, the group dives right into said thumping drums along with droning keyboard under the stoic, almost robotic vocals of bassist/keyboardist Terrin Riemer and pushes through the entire album with enthusiasm and innovative, contrasting workouts. "52 Pickup" summons sharp and elliptical guitar work, layered intelligently by Ricky Riemer, and catchy vocal tradeoffs between Terrin and Ricky Riemer, while "Back 2 Square 1" forsakes some of the tension for a more summery (a dirty summer, make no mistake) melodic approach, which could easily be plugged into one of the many hipster, feel-good Volkswagen advertisements, provided Volkswagen were looking for a gritty image. At times the fidelity is purposely gross (gro-fi, perhaps?), but His & Her Vanities has the ultimate knack for feeding off this to build layers of clever depth that are slowly unveiled over several listens. Whether or not Madison, WI, has realized what an intriguing group it has in the difficult to pin down His & Her Vanities is a question that begs to be asked; however, one hopes the answer is yes and implores the rest of the world to take a minute to listen to an infectious, fun, and refreshing group that simultaneously stands far out from and somehow fits into the scene of the numerous punk and post-punk revivalist bands that dominated indie culture during the early 2000s. -Gregory McIntosh - All Music Guide

His & Her Vanities s/t
Science of Sound CD 2003 - 12 tracks 34:55:00
I'll let you in on a little secret: If you want to be sure I listen to your album, tell me how you've been compared to Gang of Four, Wire, Pixies and Mission of Burma. I used to spend hours on mp3.com or rollingstone.com just searching for bands that listed the above foursome as influences or "similar artists." Why is it, then, that I haven't heard of Madison Wisconsin's His & Her Vanities before?

Now I'll let you in on another little secret: If you trick me into listening to your album by mentioning the above bands, you are, of course, destined to disappoint me. After all, critics generally refer back to those progenitors of quirky post-punk when they're unfamiliar with the more modern similarities that exist between the band in question, and its generally well- established (and derivative) peers.

His and Her Vanities, naturally, fits into the above category. They are reminiscent of any number of recent, post-punk and art-punk bands. Luckily for all (especially me), this self-titled release is far from disappointing.

The creative force of H&HV is the married duo of multi-instrumentalists Ricky and Terrin Riemer. And aside from the more-than-occasional assistance of drummer Sara Winkelman, all songs are written, realized and recorded by the couple. The sound components are simple: angular guitar, bounding (and occasionally, distorted to be abusive) bass, and snapping drums are augmented by whirring synthesizers and trading or overlapping male/female vocals. The band hasn't discovered new sounds, only ingenious ways to combine them.

Jagged vocal and instrumental lines drift in and out of phase in organic accidents, creating songs so thick that the listener has to experience the music rather than digest its parts. Climbing and falling guitar lines howl beside vocal melodies until one or both drop out to reveal the steady roll of a snare. In fact, throughout the album any instrument is likely to vanish leaving a noticeable hole. That moment of exposed winding guitar or bouncing bass serves as an introduction, forcing the listener into a different segment of the song.

It is true that in the darkest moments, such as the Ricky Riemer sung "Alfonzo," the band is truly reminiscent of Magazine and their ilk, but more often than not the distorted hectic cadence of Terrin Riemer's voice backed by disjointed electronic trickery is much more reminiscent of Le Tigre. Furthermore, in the craziest, silliest, poppiest moments, such those in "In a Culture," the band speaks more to Stereo Total.

The band's engaging musical elements are, unfortunately, seldom combined into complete songs – truly the genius of The Pixies or Mission of Burma. And because of this missing structure, their hooks and choruses aren't nearly as memorable. The band, however, chooses not to think in those terms. "Dispatch Elevation," for example, builds nicely to an expected chorus; however, the song quickly becomes vague and shifty, loosing any structured momentum that may have been built. I believe H&HV prefers its songs to be lessons in audience concentration until ultimately forcing the audience to surrender to the chaos that swirls about. My advice: trust the band to take you on their ride. - Too Much Rock

When last we heard from the Vanities, the Madison now-wavers were warming up the Barrymore Theatre for the red-hot Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and let me tell ya, the kids up front were diggin' 'em). They've been pretty quiet in the six months since, though, with Ricky and Terrin Riemer (the eponymous power-couple at the core of HHV) taking time off to add both another tiny Riemer to their household and a second CD to their discography.

This 10-song disc marks a confident step forward for HHV, as the band's driving, danceable rhythms and angular, Devo-esque melodies are brought into even sharper focus. In particular, Ricky's guitar leads chime, clang and roar like a symphony of metal-stamping tools, while the whole band infuse the catchy "Notapartablurb" with an extra steroid boost. And for a welcome twist, splashes of early-Pink Floyd psychedelia color the soft-toned "Field Fire".

More so than on their debut, there's a discernible sense of warmth coursing through this album. It's a subtle, largely indefinable quality, but one that strongly suggests the Vanities have come into their own. - The Isthmus - Madison, WI

“…A Thought Process, marks a new His and Her Vanities; a less experimental, more comfortable song-writing entity, one that’s begun to place the raw power of guitar, bass, and drums at the foreground, and glitchy electronics at the back. Every arrangement is so creative, every song a work of surprising ingenuity…” – Jared Harvey - Emmie Magazine

Especially in the local music scene, there's something to be said for quality control. All too often, even the best local artists fall into the trap of releasing countless, indistinguishable albums, flooding an already oversaturated market and scaring away outside listeners looking to explore the local scene.

His & Her Vanities, however, are a local act that shows some restraint. Their catalogue - two full-lenths released two years apart - epitomizes a "quality over quantity" mentality, and they limit the number of shows they perform to just a few every couple of months.

Despite the band's intentionally low profile, the Vanities have cemented a dedicated local and national following, largely through word of mouth. Their self-titled debut album is widely circulated around the internet by fans of quirky rock, and the group furthered their profile with a well-received show at 2003's South by Southwest festival. Although the Vanities have few plans to promote their recently released second album, A Thought Process, the record will likely win them new listeners and create more buzz around them.

A Thought Process fine tunes the sound the Vanities mastered on their self-titled debut. Traces of Devo, Wire and Gang of Four are still tied together by pop sensibilities reminiscent of the Pixies' and the Dismemberment Plan's most accessible work, but this album has a rawer feel to it than their last one. Missing are the layered keyboards and electronics that were a strong presence on the debut, scrapped in favor of a down-to-basics guitar, drum and bass sound.

The change works well. Without the keyboards, their sound is less cluttered and more urgent, and none of the playfulness that made the first album so endearing has been sacrificed.

Like their deubt, A Thought Process was self-recorded in Science of Sound, the basement studio of guitarist/singer Ricky Riemer. Riemer primarily uses the studio to record with the Vanities and his other band, Transformer Lootbag, but the studio could become a real powerhouse in Madison's music scene. Three of the year's best local releases - the latest Vanities album, the self-titled debut of Carl Johns' pop outfit Charlemagne and alt-country sweetheart MaeRae's YesPlease - were recorded there and more should be on the way.

"I'm still reconfiguring some stuff down there now but soon I want to open up the door to more people," Riemer said.

The Vanities will celebrate the offical release of A Thought Process with a show at the High Noon Saloon Saturday, Sept. 4. Catch them now or your might have to wait a couple months before they play again. -Evan Rytlewski - Core Weekly