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Venus Ray

The World Woke Up Without Me

Label: Negative Release Date: 14/04/2003

4246
hotbutterytoast by Steph June 12th, 2003

The world woke up without this crew of warped indie boys, leaving them alone in an unknown place of wreckage to have every imaginable emotion inflicted upon them, until finally, blinking in the light, they were let loose upon the world that had deserted them and unleashed their diary of what they had been through in that strange place.

The intricate and delicate harmonies - soaring one minute, plummeting the next - juxtaposed with vehement, vitriolic drums and occasional swoops of an electronic something or other make this an obviously personal work; listening to it is sometimes like reading someone’s diary, intruding on their life as they pour out their life and soul and secret passions. Best of the bunch are opener ‘Melody’ and the euphoric ‘Electric Guitar’, the former both menacing but optimistic, the latter embroidered by a swagger many other bands can only dream of. But amidst the moments of bruised revelations and quietly hopeful beauty there are passages of repetitious filler – if this album truly was someone’s diary, these bits would be descriptions of what they ate for breakfast and exactly why they like the people they do. Probably good stuff if you know the person or share their fascination with cornflakes, but otherwise indulgent and just plain bewildering.

’Hurricane’ was well chosen as the first single, being as it is an upbeat and insanely catchy little number, but don’t dive in and expect an album of the same. ’The World Woke Up Without Me’ is an account of their time in the dark condensed into bite sized fragments and given baffling names such as ‘Gullybank Rock’ – it’ll never be played on the radio, but in its own little way it definitely rawks.

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