R3VO – Fireflies EP
R3VO – Fireflies EP
Self-Released
Release Date: 16/11/22
Running Time: 23:30
Review by Simon Black
9/10
Occasionally something comes across the bows that takes you completely by surprise.
R3VO are based in Berlin and have only really started to get off the starting blocks since their inception in 2019 thanks to you-know-what. An email in the EM inbox direct from the band started the conversation, and since I’m always up for a bit of Prog I went for it myself, because they did ask very nicely and took the trouble to find us online rather than via a PR company. A bit of research indicates that despite their relative newness, this is a band who are making dents in a crowded marketplace. A quick spin of this EP quickly indicates why.
Normally if five tracks bounced around the influences encompassing everything from Pop to a Funky Electronica, to the down-tuned nastiness of Grunge with the anger of Groove-soaked Hardcore in a Metal sandwich with an eclectic vocalist with a strong Alternative bent (but without the annoying whinging of Emo) then I would normally be arguing that it was time to pick a couple of these flavours and nail things down a bit more tightly. Not here though, because the key word missing from that last list is the one which makes it possible for all of these things to co-exist in the same twenty-three minutes and that is ‘Progressive’.
The name may invoke a Star Wars droid unit, but as a musical unit this rather young four piece are incredibly tight. To be able to shift between all these styles fluidly within tracks like a jazz band riffing off the moment, yet still retaining the overall coherent song-structure is no small achievement. So much so that this takes me a good five end-to-end spins before I can even begin to start writing this, which is usually a sign that either I’ve got a real clanger on my hands and I’m trying to work out how to pull my punches, or that I have found a band I am going to fall in love with.
For a four piece they really max up the richness in the sounds, and despite the fact that the individual tracks sound like they may have been recorded at different times, this is a remarkably cohesive debut EP. With haunting yet subtly powerful vocals, some incredibly fluid and technically complex instrumental work and most of all, real damned deep ear-worm catchiness, this seems like an incredibly promising start. The title track and single ‘Fireflies’ is an absolute catchy monster, and deserves a shit load of airplay, but I can tell from the technical wizardry and subtlety in everything else that yes, this is a band to love.
‘Fireflies’ Official Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Artificial Pleasure
02. Fireflies
03. Dorian Gray
04. Darling
05. Aluminium
LINE-UP:
Altair Chagué – Drums
Jan Kurfürst – Guitar
Leo Lotux’s – Vocals
Victor Nissim – Bass
LINKS:
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