The Vulcan Dub Squad

THE VULCAN Dub Squad is a mysterious group of faceless musicians from Toronto who play nearly everything BUT dub -- mostly garage rock 'n' roll, dreamy pop and angular Brit rock. Their live shows are raucous events in which they can really let loose and go wild, maybe because they insist on wearing masks onstage. But there are downsides to the anonymity, according to singer/guitarist Ranbir Gundu, like not being able to see what your bandmates are doing. "It's tricky," he says over the phone from Brampton. "We use backlighting so we can see the outline of the people onstage, and if we get lost or someone makes a mistake, we use really big gestures to signal each other. Singing is hard, because the mask has a mesh front, and the sweatier you become, the deeper down your throat it goes. But I think we're solid enough from practising that we're usually fine." For now, drummer David Croft and new bassist Matt del Buono -- are committed to their facelessness, but that may change. "There's a feeling of liberation when I put the mask on, like if I trash a few microphones and jump around and knock stuff over, no one is going to know who I am or think I look silly," says Gundu. "But it definitely makes things more difficult, and a lot less commercially viable. It's a fine line, and I don't think we're going to walk it for much longer." The Vulcans are nearly as slippery when it comes to defining their music as they are about revealing their faces. On their brand-new album, Just Watch Us, they lurch back and forth among genres from track to track, but seem to possess mastery over each one. It doubtless makes them hard to market, but fun to listen to. "Don't you get annoyed when you buy a CD and get 10 variations on the same song?" he asks. "If you really love music, it's so hard to stick to one type of it. And when you make it, a pastiche comes out, made up of everything you've listened to. And our generation has more information at our disposal than any other, so the opportunity to hear all kinds of music is greater than ever." On Just Watch Us, all those styles are held together by a certain sonic topcoat applied in the studio. "The premise was to record an album that sounds like when you were really not cynical about music," says Gundu, "and somebody made you a tape and you played the hell out of it without worrying about what the bass and vocals sound like. "I wanted the sound of a tape from '84, but also that AM sunshine '60s radio sound. I love that soul and summer innocence sound. So we combined that with an '80s tape, and put our songs down on top." - Anonymous Expressions - Mary Dickie

Schizophrenic, Canada-centric Dub Squad return with a cross-section of coolie sounds and textures. The disc-opening "Us Alone" offers a melancholy nod to Can's Damo Suzuki, while the oddly-titled "Alpha Flight #12" is a lesson in angry garage rock. The bi-polar, multi-sectioned "Slag" and "Aubrey" then split the difference in epic fashion. Moody instrumental passages are, however, this band's forte -- the trippy "Nishant" is especially hypnotic (and one of few songs not taking sharp lefts at unexpected moments). It's a touch pretentious at times, but the Vulcan Dub Squad's unorthodox grandiosity is still impressive. And the bilingual, Trudeau-adorned CD cover is a nice touch too.
- Just Watch Us - Chris Rolfe

“Every rock band should spend a few hours a week trapped in an elevator. Think of all they would learn about making sounds to catch people's attention. Toronto's Vulcan Dub Squad has done time in the elevators of the mind, shouting, pummelling and sometimes whispering against the fear that no one has yet heard what needs to be said. Aubrey, the central and longest composition of the band's latest CD, assumes that truth is an elusive thing that's better served by a 10-minute medley than a 32-bar song in one style. Instinct counts for a lot when you're veering from lo-fi punk to a kind of tragic strumming along the dream time of life, and VDS's instincts are mostly good. Its seductive, enigmatic album seethes with discontent about an era in which visionaries lack sway and the community of Us Alone finds itself threatened by powerful cabals."
- "Just Watch Us" - Rober-Everett Green