Van Go Lion, and other likely stories

We always like hearing about new music here at The Pop Web and we've been fortunate enough recently to have been given access to a plethora of new bands and acts to tickle our fancy in recent weeks. Sadly, as perhaps befits our... ahem... frenetic updating record it's taken us a little while to get round to putting some words down on the page. However, you'll be thrilled to know that we are now in a position to tell you all about Van Go Lion.

First thing's first, that's a very definite tick in the bonkers name column.

Crucially, however, VGL are also known as Amy Paige and Josh Loerzel from Portland Oregon. The now ubiquitous Pop Web wikipedia check reveals that they therefore hail from the same locale as the Dandy Warhols and The Kingsmiths, famous for writing Louie, Louie. So it's encouraging to know we're already off to a good start.

The main things you need to know about Van Go Lion are:

1) Amy has an amazing voice which is in fact one of the most prodigiously perfect pop voices we've heard.

2) Amy has an amazing voice.

3) Josh enjoys wearing sunglasses indoors and has a particular knack for creating very atmospheric electro- pop.

4) Did we mention Amy has an amazing voice?

Let's illustrate all this with an example. The Ache is a track off their eponymous EP (out now, readers, etc.).

On the one hand, what you've got here is a brilliant vocal, and a cleverly understated backing track with enough bells and whistles to keep you hooked. The lyrics oscillate between the sublime (e.g. "I know that I will change, stay a perfect portrait lost in stages of the strange") to the faintly bizarre (e.g. "a pocketful of candy" with a suitably crescendo-ing emphasis on "candy"). It's by no means a perfect pop song, but it's a good measure of the potential that Josh and Amy have.

That potential is more fully explored in the bloody brilliant Glow 

Amy's voice is allowed to absolutely shine here on a heartbreaking sad-disco which presses all of our buttons perfectly. It's a perfect showcase for what Van Go Lion bring to the table, in our opinion, which is well-crafted electro-pop with an emotional resonance which doesn't often spring to mind when you're confronted with anyone from the genre not called Robyn. 

It's very clear that there's still a long way to go from Van Go Lion - some of the other tracks we've heard have demonstrated a bit of a worrying tendency to go a bit mad with the mixing desk, which in our opinion can detract, rather than complement the effectiveness of the vocal and the songwriting. But, despite that, we definitely feel that there's a band here with a lot of upside who, with more experience and exposure, may well develop into a real act to watch in the future. We certainly wish them well, and sincerely hope they get over to the UK sooner, rather than later so we can see how their live act measures up to the recording.

 

As we mentioned, their EP is out on iTunes at the moment (you can also visit their site www.vangolion.com to have a listen).