These guys are almost here, I promise. The anticipation for their debut album brings to light one simple truth: Viet Cong know how to build hype the right way. A strong EP, quite a few scorching singles, and most importantly, quality music have the collective music world drooling for their album. "Continental Shelf" was released in October, but its video was released yesterday. The video features haunting macabre imagery with the occasional cut to chill-wave inspired footage of the ocean. Like the song itself, the video is quite jarring. When describing the song to a friend, I related it to him by simply saying "Imagine if Surfer Blood were really, really angry and a little scary." That seemed to do the trick. The west coast stomp is there, as well as the monolithic guitar riffs lumbering a long like most surf-rock does these days. However, the sunny reverberation on the electric guitar has been swapped with an dark lo-fi hiss, and lead vocalist Matt Flegel could teach a university class on mastering the post-punk howl. It all ads up to a bizarre yet ultimately catchy experience definitely worth a view and a listen.
- Garrett Cottingham