More Strange Behavior Reviews

Mishka

Screen Vinyl Image need to be huge. Just larger than life. From their early work with Alcian Blue to 2009’s incredible Interceptors and its follow-up EP Ice Station, the D.C. duo have been tirelessly building their shadowy noisegaze to epic, monumental heights.  It’s not surprising that latest release Strange Behavior is ultimately their cleanest and most grand; they’ve been creeping toward this since the first notes rang out on “Synthetic Apparition”. Since they first discovered the balance between snarling gothgaze and the dreamworld their jams so often inhabit.

And despite this newfound cleanliness — the more pronounced vocal focus, shimmer that stems from more from melody than effect — Strange Behavior still exists firmly in that deep, dark dreamworld. From the shoegaze meets power-pop ballad “We Don’t Belong” to the glittering Cure-ishness of “Station 4”, most of the album feels like an glimpse into some feathery, unknown place. Harmonies combine like watercolor, dripping down the page, every note and texture living in an overwhelming sense of half-lucid reality. Even the heavy fuzz of “Rx” — definitely the darkest, most aggressive, most earthly of the tracks — has that just-out-of-focus quality. Like a dream you only sorta remember, no matter how hard you try.

But beside all that (and maybe most importantly) these tracks are just gigantic. They propel themselves to satellite height, build and squeal and scream, asking nothing but that you let yourself be lifted with them. It’s tough to hear Strange Behavior and not feel like too much of the world is missing out on something; that one of the most emotionally affecting modern bands is right here, in our midst, breaking into a skyward run for perfection. Screen Vinyl Image need to be huge. But we’ll sit patiently with this bevy of can’t-miss releases until they are.

-Rue Sauvage, NYC

DC Music Download

The faces of local noizegaze band Screen Vinyl Image are Kim and Jake Reid, a husband and wife duo from Arlington, Virginia. Since their inception back in ‘07, the band has kept themselves busy with the release of three full length albums (Interceptors, Ice Station, and now Strange Behavior), a smattering of EPs along with appearing on several compilations to add to their musical resumes.

The December ‘11 release of  Strange Behavior draws heavy inspiration and nostalgia from acts like New Order, The Cure, and even on occasion The Smiths. The real selling point of the album is Reid’s ability to capture a melancholy beauty in his lyrics. This is no easy feat and is most present in tracks “We Don’t Belong” and “My Confession”.

Screen Vinyl images interpretation of new wave and shoegaze on this album provides an interesting and overall good listen.  But occasionally, this album veers abruptly out of its comfort zone. The most grating example of this is in the track “Stay Asleep”, a 7 minute, 58 second long piece with two contrasting identities. The song begins similarly to all of the songs on the album, heavy on the drum machine and synthesizer. You listen, expecting another delightful new wave inspired piece when seemingly, out of nowhere, it adopts this pulsing, alien, industrial rock sound. While not an uninviting sound, it does feel foreign compared to the rest of the album.

This album is just one of many examples that make one statement clear: new wave and shoegaze isn’t going away. More so, it’s evolving, and Screen Vinyl Image is experimenting with that evolution of sound. Their fusion of industrial, punk, and electronica is a sheer delight. However, there does seem to be a need of refinement in order to capture the essence of this in Strange Behavior. But don’t turn your back on this band. One hook to Screen Vinyl Image is their consistency with trying to evolve and mature their sound, which has and will continue to have its fans intrigued and waiting for more music.

-Katie Carey 

Projecto Cellophane (Translated)

This band is a recent passion and their new album is a clear sign of the progress of this project. Catchy tunes, discharged by guitars and electronics serve the school dance here with shoegaze and new wave and offers us some truly memorable moments. Highly recommend if you do not already know them.

-Nuno Almeida, Portugal

IRM (Translated)

With so many great guitar records in 2011, how could we almost miss out on mentioning this second album of Screen Vinyl Image? Thank God for these age-old balances of at year-end lists.

This music duo of Arlington, Virginia has little equivalent to the present, combining the inspiration of abrasive noise dear to the Safranin Sound label, which saw them rub elbows with Ceremony or Vera Violets and other custodians of a shoegaze ultra-referenced time, and of their previous incarnation as Alcian Blue and SVI's debut full length Interceptors in 2009, with beats often feverish cold but a decidedly dark synthetic rock straddling the new wave of the 80s and the new scene in New York represented in particular by A Place To Bury Strangers.

However, Kim Reid (synths, programming, atmospheres and vocals) and her husband Jake (guitars, beats, bass and vocals) have slightly tightened their remarks on Strange Behavior, leaving the reminiscences of dub, techno and even hip-hop that still gave color in the rhythm of the previous album to now concentrate all of these full atmospheres and Gothic walls of incandescent that characterize them. The result: an album that is both more concise and more dense, implacable as they participate in the elegant restoration of the prestige of a genre virtually fallen into disuse since the heyday of Spacemen 3.

-Fred M, France

DC Rock Live

This wonderful local duo stayed with the tried and true approach using a light smoke machine, full projections and the keyboard banks, two guitars and one vocal. They also have a thick, powerful sound that merges melody and psychedelic overtones quite majestically throughout the set. The vocal work is moody and assured and they use percussion very well by adding sequencers and less obvious drum machine programs. The sizable crowd tonight is into it and this band seems to have firmly established its place as a pivotal area band. At least they have with me, as I enjoy them more every time I see them. Often a 40 minute set from the third band is enough, but I would have welcomed more. They are a hard band to pass on, even when my schedule gets busy. 

David Hintz, Washington DC

Washington Post

Local duo Screen Vinyl Image played a brief and bracing show on the Black Cat Backstage Wednesday night, turning the weaknesses of their latest record into strengths.

The music that Jake and Kim Reid make on their recent Strange Behavior is overly murky and ponderous, but live, with their bank of rhythm machines set to Chest Rattle and their guitars turned to Super Echo, their dark-hued take on shoegaze made perfect sense.

Throughout the 40-minute set — with the house lights turned off and the stage illuminated only by a slideshow and the occasional strobe — it was clear that songs like “Revival” were made to be felt as well as heard.

When the pair turned to “Angelica Take Me Down,” a song by their former band Alcian Blue, it was an illuminating moment: The older tune was speedier and thinner than the songs that came before and after it, and clearly demonstrated their current outfit’s sharper, more powerful focus.

Drawing inspiration from a slew of iconic acts— the influence of Suicide, Lush, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Joy Division are easily discernable in songs like “My Confession” and “Night Trip — Screen Vinyl Image is hardly working the cutting edge. Yet, the single-minded dedication they displayed indicated they couldn’t care less what decade it is.

Which may explain why the standout track on “Strange Behavior” is titled “We Don’t Belong.” With every stylized vocal line from Jake and every icy strum of Kim’s highly-reverbed guitar it became clear that the duo relishes their out-of-time strategy.

Patrick Foster, Washington DC