This isn’t your average power trio. South Florida based The Von never feels hidebound to observe our expectations about their format. They make no effort to imitate past icons, peddle no gimmicks, and take an unabashedly sincere approach to their songwriting aims. These are writers and musicians looking to connect with their audience. These are writers and musicians who would never stop creating even if they never played for another live audience. When something within you wants to speak, be heard, and listen, the practicalities of pursuing it as a career get scant consideration. The Von pours out the eight songs on their debut album Ei8ht with that sort of freedom. They put themselves out there on every track, seemingly at war with their own instruments at certain points, exploding with outsized emotions and incredible spirit.
You can hear that spirit in the album’s first song. “Nothing to Fear” preaches just that and the philosophical ideas driving its message find an unexpectedly fine accompaniment in the band’s thunderous stomp. This isn’t a leaden crash and thud burner however; The Von, if nothing else, is always focused on finding a groove and giving each song an edge of classic swing that adds gravitas. The same mode of thought dominates “The Machine”, but its lyrical material recalls so many other works that it risks pastiche. It’s a much more successful tune musically and benefits from dense and powerful guitar. “Cry of War” is far too controlled to be deemed rambunctious, but it certainly sports a great deal of energy. The song illustrates a subtler musical point about the band. There are hidden progressive tendencies lurking just under the surface of their songwriting thanks to the precision playing and commitment to not wasting a single note. This sort of clinical obsession with detail makes each song an exceptionally compressed musical experience, fully immersive, and engages the imagination with much more ease.
The band’s progressive touches are more apparent on “Atomic Sun”. The band refurbishes the timeless love song for their own purposes with a slightly psychedelic lyric imbuing the narrator’s object of affection with unimaginable power. It’s an adoring point of view however and the song, despite its heavily electrified nature, has a remarkably gentle touch. The heat returns, however, with the claustrophobically dense opening of “Let It Out”. The energy collapses from the opening and the verses settle into a seething calm with the guitar occasionally flaring through the open spaces. The title song concludes Eight on an appropriately epic note. It’s easy to hear this as some personal statement, a reflective look over a life lived that has brought the singer to this point. It never becomes hamfisted or overwrought, however, and that speaks to a maturity beyond its years in the band’s outlook. Ei8ht deserves a hopeful, yet knowing, end. The Von supplies it.
They can go anywhere from here. A debut this strong doesn’t come along often and will smash any remaining walls. A debut this strong comes with its own problems too, but there’s such spark in these songs that it’s difficult to believe this is anything less than the first salvo in a long career of highlights that will entertain and influence many. The Von is special – seek them out today.
9 out of 10 stars.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/RISEOFVON
I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ei8ht/id1057049561
Cyrus Rhodes
