Video: Modern Vices, ‘Cheap Style’

Kevin Bronson on November 13th, 2014

0

You have to dig deep, and maybe use some imagination, on the debut album from Modern Vices to hear the doo-wop in what the band calls its “dirty doo-wop” sound. “Don’t Hold Me Down” and “Smoke Rings,” at least, echo the era, but that’s nitpicking: Point is, “Modern Vices” (out last month on Autumn Tone) is worth digging into, deeply. The band – singer Alex Rebek, guitarists Tomas Peters and Peter Scoville, drummer Patrick Hennessey and bassist Miles Kalchik – is the latest guitar-wielding outfit making us think there’s something in the water in Chicago. (Name-checking the Orwells and Twin Peaks here.) Anyway, between their off-kilter guitars and Rebek’s howl-it-like-you-mean-it vocals, Modern Vices suggest an AM radio version of the Strokes and the Killers, force-fed a diet of Orange Juice. Ryan Ohm’s video for “Cheap Style” suggests that too, so even though it might crackle a bit, singles like that one and “Taller in the Sunshine” deserve every ounce of volume from your transistor. Just don’t throw the empty beer cans out the car window.

||| Stream: “Taller in the Sunshine”