When approaching a debut album from a buzzy indie-rock band there are a few things that can be expected as par for the course, chiefly jangly guitar melodies and catchy choruses that, if you’re lucky, may live on as indie disco floor-fillers.
On ‘Get Real’ CVC—Church Village Collective, named after their home town close to Pontypridd in south Wales—avoid these tropes, crafting a record that smacks of a group being completely in tune with who they are and the music they play.
Although starting off as a jam band back in 2019, opener Hail Mary makes it clear that we’re not dealing with a small town garage band here. This is a different beast entirely.
Those jam-centric beginnings remain clear, though, in the ease with which the indie-rock stomper Good Morning Vietnam leads seamlessly into the exceptional soulful ballad Woman Of Mine, a song so good that most bands wouldn’t be capable of writing it for their debut LP.
CVC wear their eclectic influences on their sleeve, mixing multi-part vocal harmonies, inspired by guitarist-vocalist Elliott Bradfield hearing hundreds-strong school choirs as a kid, with ‘60s pop and the off-kilter compositional elements of ‘70s psych-rock. As soon as you have an inkling of where an idea is going, they are already onto the next one.
Singer Francesco Orsi has an effortless, dynamic vocal range, so whether it’s a saccharine toe-tapper like Anogo, which looks back on when keyboardist Daniel ‘Naniel’ Jones broke both his arms, or the more expansive, blues-rock-leaning American Ultra, written about a dream of Orsi’s, he gauges the tone expertly.
Guitarist David Bassey has previously said, “The point of being in a band is to have fun and to make music that people enjoy.” And it seems the band, completed by bassist Ben Thorne and drummer Tom Fry, include themselves among those ‘people’. Throughout ‘Get Real’ there is an abundance of joyful energy that beautifully captures the spirit and vigour of a live show.
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