Veiled

“Alienation, scorn and hopelessness reign over the Inland Empire of this SoCal sextet, which channels heavy guitar riffs, expressionistic lyrics and moody lead vocals into a pristinely recorded four-song CD. Singer Charlie Kim’s morosely melodic voice is ideal for these songs, whose titles (“Decay,” “Suffocating,” “Paralyzed”) define the band’s gloomster viewpoint. These artists do a highly signable (and tuneful) job of mining the dark vaults of existence.” - Music Connection

Seldom in this life do we find music that seems to cripple our inhibitions and render us completely vulnerable. More often than not we are sidetracked by the bare bellies and androgynous ideals that are made to suggest the validity of artists. It is because of these tawdry impersonators and expectations that we forget whom the real musicians are…
Veiled is one of these groups of true musicians; I recently had the privilege of seeing them at the Third Eye Gathering in downtown Los Angeles. The band couldn’t have asked for a better forum for their talent, as it is an event designed for artists of all mediums to come together and support one another through performances, displays, and other various forms of expression. Held in an airplane hanger, the walls were covered in incredible art, and the location allowed for the most fascinating types of people on earth to easily flow through the experience.
After a warm and welcoming introduction by Third Eye Gathering founder Barry Krevoy, Veiled took the stage and dove into what would be one of the most captivating performances I have ever seen. Opening their set with "Decay," guitarists Greg Panciera and Ali Nikou combined tonal textures and phrasing to create an immense landscape of frail vulnerability, launching lead vocalist Charlie Kim into his melancholy conversational verses and signature consummate winding melody lines. Bass player Chris Freeman embraced the song's feeling of gentle torture and imbedded pain with deep, rich undertones and precise balance. Veiled's versatility and conviction in “Decay” lured in any remaining stragglers still smoking outside. There was now an entranced and sweaty mass formed around the stage…
Next, the band cooled it down with the most lyrically significant song of the night, "Eye". Kim's words and physical appearance wreaked of peaceful disdain and haunting self-sacrificial sentiment. Drummer Blair Shotts burned in his own dose of vacant sadness with a slow, modified militant drum roll which later hardened to perfectly compliment a flawless and incandescent guitar solo by Ali Nikou.
The band’s fourth tune, "Only Love Remains", would be the best of the night with its emotionally charged choruses causing the only real tears I have ever seen at a live show-not tears of screaming teenagers fantasizing about one of the band members-no-these were tears of satisfaction and vulnerability welling up, not just in my eyes, but in the eyes of several others around me. “Only Love Remains” was infused with tear-down-the-house vocal melodies dripping with both confliction and remorse. The finale of the song was simply devastating as Kim’s body dropped and pulled like a rag doll as drummer Shotts, seemingly possessed, flailed out of his chair, beating his kit mercilessly.
The final song of the evening was the confessional masterpiece "Paralyzed" which opened with Kim on keyboards and violinist Koi Anunta wrenching gorgeous screams and shrieks from her white violin. Both Panciera and Nikou’s universal guitar tones encapsulated the enslavement bread inside the song's true intention. Triumphing in its enormous and bawling chorus, Paralyzed’s melodic destructiveness dropped me into a kind of subconscious labyrinth that somehow forced me to acknowledge my own pain; it was a perfect set-capper and it brought a now sweat drenched audience to raise its arms in thunderous applause and stench.
It is very rare that I find myself being forced out of my own self induced psychosis by a live band. Veiled’s music is emotionally enthralling, bitterly tranquil, and in the true sense of the words, MIND ALTERING; their set left myself and the rest of the audience with, quite literally, jaws hanging to the floor. In a time where music is characterized most commonly by emotional emptiness-it was damn refreshing to hear Veiled serve up 40 minutes of the real thing.

For more info:
Veiled: www.veiledmusic.com, www.myspace.com/veiled
Third Eye Gathering: www.myspace.com/3EG

- i-rock-u.com