The Volitains
London, England, United Kingdom | SELF
Music
Press
our rating 9/10
The Volitains' last release, 'Underground', had me electrified with excitement, and it was always going to be a tough job of providing a follow-up that equalled the standard they'd set. With this double A-side, they've ably succeeded, revealing different facets of their character at the same time.
'Lovely Bones' is at the slower end of the tempo spectrum, but cranks the sleaze up to eleven. It's sultry, sassy and has spadefuls of swagger and lip-curling attitude. 'Joy' adopts a magnificently cool NY No-Wave punk stance and stomps along, sneering and snarling all over the place. In combination, it all points to a band who are really ones to watch. The Volitains are seriously cool. That's not an opinion, but a fact.
- whisperinandhollerin
Max: Now this is pretty cool. Some really noisy guitars going on here, I'm into it.
Ryan: And what's your final score for the day?
Max: For being noisy, and again, a bit like Sonic Youth, I'm going to go with an eight. - High Voltage
Fate has had a big hand in helping London quartet, The Volitains, come to be. Guitarist Nick D’Amico met lead singer Candice Ayery by virtually saving her life at Camden Town Underground station and so begun this very impressive new band.
Both ‘Underground’ and ‘This Love’ capture the punky feel to these rocking tracks. Makes you realise this is a band that you want to go see live where their energy and attitude will blow you away along with everyone else in the crowd.
In a market which is hard to be original, ‘Underground’ is a song that tries to be so, not one to follow the stereotypical style for a song, from the opening synthesised intro to the cameo drum solo at the end. This includes Candice Ayery’s vocals, real in your face style that surely will see The Volitains become a force to be reckoned with. Coupled with ‘This Love’, this release has a Stooges feel to it, if Iggy was a female that is and has fast become a firm favourite here. - Room Thirteen
There's an overwhelmingly dirty garage rock vibe on 'Underground', which comes complete with jagged guitar lines, tribal drums and frenzied female vocals. Pretty amazing. This is what The Dead Weather should sound like. - Faded Glamour
Riding in on a bank of tribal drumming, this hard-rockin' shriek-athon is not simply the usual London wannabes texting in their third generation take on The Clash or, given the female singer, L7. Somewhere along the line a perverse New York art rock gene has muddied The Volitains' waters, not in that self-conscious early Bloc Party way, but more like "Death Valley 69"-era Sonic Youth. Thus the howling, annoyed vocals of front-woman Candice Ayery fight it out with an original, unpredictable stop-start stew of lairy guitars on "Underground" then, by way of reward, are given their own dirty T-Rex-meets-Led Zep riff to ride for "This Love". If The Volitains can muster this kind of avant-punk-blues assault live, they will go far. (THG) - The Arts Desk
Discography
Singles
Underground
A side - "Underground"
B Side - "Iron Heel"
Lovely Bones/Joy
A1 - 'Lovely Bones
A2 - 'Joy'
Photos
Bio
Most bands usually form from meeting at university or a gig, jamming together and finding like minded players along the way or are the results from the ashes of previous bands and forming a new one. Not the key figures behind London’s new answer to no wave, The Volitains.
Their story involves a dramatic moment in the London Underground. Call it luck or the forces of universe stepping in to take control but on one spring night after jamming with friend and drummer Dave Roberts, guitarist Nick D’Amico was waiting on the platform of Camdentown tube station when he spotted a semi-drunken crazed-looking girl singing to herself as she walked towards him. As she came closer, a man bumped her towards the tracks in front of D’Amico who dropped his guitar and grabbed her arm with one hand moments before a train pulled in. After a much deserved ‘thank you’ was delivered and a series of musings between the two about the greatness of Patti Smith, Kurt Cobain, Karen O and The Stooges occurred on the train, the future singer for what was to be The Volitains had been discovered.
With a final line up completed with Candice Ayery and then bassist Jim Hosking joining in the summer of 2009, The Volitains went on to gig relentlessly in the circuit going from playing empty venues to drawing over 200 people at headline shows in some of London's top venues.
By the end of the year, the band realised it was time to settle down and transfer their sonically eruptive live sound to record. Teaming up with Icelandic pop producer, Leifur Einarrson aka Lex, he took their initial experimentations with electronics and combined them with the raw strummings of D’Amico & Jim to create a blend of banged up rock accompanied by Candice’s demonic vocal delivery resulting in music that makes the hair on one’s neck stand up. Their sound has been described by others as 'high energy brassy garage rock with Sonic Youth influences.’ They simply consider themselves a live act rather than a studio band as D’Amico says:
‘More than anything, we feel we’re a live rock band with a ‘if you don’t like it then fuck off’ type of attitude that Candice brings in especially on tracks like ‘Underground’.
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