On their emotionally sweeping new full-length album Viv, a May Dais Records release, the California rock group Spice present a stirring portrait of finding genuinely freeing—even if temporary—relief.
Moving through Viv could be compared to the feeling of stumbling into a friend while listlessly out on the town—the internal tension that drove your prior, nervous movements hasn’t vanished, but there’s an energizing sense of purpose reflected by the songs’ driving push forward. The music seems geared towards comfort attained through beneath-the-surface understanding and a sense that you can keep going.
Musically, the punchy but slick Viv features melodic turns that suggest an emotional fraying—the pulses of life are there and unmistakable, but Spice broaden their portrait. Viv sounds rhythmically upended, reflecting the course of a sometimes-chaotic life. Yet, there’s beauty here, and warmth—the unassuming but compelling energy evokes something like the experience of a friend (who knows you’d like it) pushing you further into the crowd at some punk show.
Spice sound somewhat jarring throughout Viv, although they’ve mellowed things out beyond easily imagined, hypothetical alternatives. But you can really just throw any comparisons aside: quite simply, the music is ensnaringly catchy, although that could understate the impact. It soars, carried along by elements including vocalist Ross Farrar’s impassioned singing and the relief reflected in moments like the majestic album closer, “Climbing Down The Ladder.”
Viv is a powerful piece of artistry with which you’re going to want to just exist—it’s a vibrant, inviting world full of striking, shimmering music in which the possibilities for life prove remarkably persistent. And sometimes—like on the single “Any Day Now”—it’s exuberant. One could visualize the potential for a crowd to belt out the lyrics, although the sharp poignancy here means a sense of self-reflection—retreating into memories and standing amid the intensity of what’s left, as it were—remains prominent. Ultimately, you get a kind of freedom with Viv.
And, as always, the violins from Spice’s Victoria Skudlarek are an enlivening touch. In fact, everything here sounds vibrant; the music seems prepared so that it bursts with invigorating vivacity. It pops—Viv is accessible, but also a relatively physical record, jolting listeners into action.
Below, check out what Farrar has to say about Viv, from the balance between sadness and jubilation on the record to how Spice remain “here to rock you.”
In hindsight, are there parts on Viv that stick out to you as sort of epiphany moments? Things that, from the impressive list of options, you’re especially stoked on how they turned out?
Many moments, and we’ll say this in terms of songwriting and sound especially. As this question is posed, I immediately go back to their genesis, the beginning moments they were created, one being that diving guitar sound towards the end of “Recovery.” It comes directly after the final chorus and the words: “…and it’s so hard to admit, yeah,” relaying internal fraught in the process of recovery, and completing the emotion. I relate that sound to going through a tunnel, which feels almost romantic at times, but still dark and uneasy.
It’s kind of a melodramatic term, but what is your philosophy of songwriting, so to speak? In other words, have you pretty much always found that it feels and works out best to simply follow along with where the music goes, or is it different for you guys?
Swimmingly it goes. Often, we have (bassist) Cody (Sullivan) in his home basement making demos, turning knobs, etc. But mostly it’s the entire band in a room together making songs on the fly. (Last year’s) “Everyone Gets In” came from a singular home demo which started very basic inside a computer, then translated live in a room with instrumentation. The lion’s share of Viv was played live in a room in Santa Rosa, California, all together in harmony. Our original “philosophy of songwriting” remains: PLAY IT SHARP.
Definitely not just in genre terms, but how would you describe the sound that Spice captured on this new record? It sort of seems to sit at the nexus of an array of interesting things, building up to that engaging closer. Gotta love crescendo-ing closers.
I tend to think of sound, bands, records in terms of seasons. And with that, darker or lighter colors. We spent the entire winter of ’20/ ’21 creating the songs and recorded them in the spring of ’21. That being said, they have a bit of winter dolor put to them, but then again winter in California is pretty bright, hence the sound palette and our entire vibration. There’s a lot of sadness on this record, and the sound is mimetic of that. The sounds always come first, and then the words, so whatever I heard in there first, I put words to. Then again, there are many areas of jubilation on the record, and you can find them on songs like “Live Scene” and in the guitars of “Dining Out.”
There’s searing intensity in what’s expressed here, but the music itself sometimes feels upbeat, or energetically forward-pushing. How would you characterize the overall emotional state of the record, so to speak? In your view, what are some of the emotions expressed here, if something comes to mind?
The record is very downcast, lyrically speaking. All the lyrical content is about getting out from under a heavy psychological weight. There are many factors to this. In the past few years, we’ve lost many friends and family members to the throes of addiction. Having that as a backdrop is where we begin.
This record also comes in the shadow of a pandemic, which means we were heavily inundated with death at all hours of the day and night. We have people who fell to that virus or know people who did, and talking about it now with various people, I’ve come to the realization that what that did was shift our perception of life on earth—the frailty of it and not to mention the amount of emotional bandwidth it took up. All of us were thinking about it all the time; even if we weren’t thinking about it directly at times, it was in our subconscious.
How does this record relate to your personal lives—was it something that you utilized to work through sort of real-world issues for you guys? It sounds very true-to-life, like a collection of musical snapshots.
Very much so. We put ourselves into whatever art we create; even if we try to submerge those aspects of ourselves, they eventually surface in some way or other. I write about living in Highland Park, feeling like an outsider, the strangeness of falling in love, how we all share a community of pain, one-sided friendships, and our ideas of FUTURE, how ridiculous that can be.
Collectively, Spice definitely seem to have a lot of musical experience—y’all have been involved in a lot. It’s a somewhat broad question, but what sorts of things would you say keep you coming back to making music? Is it simply one of those things that you see yourselves always (within reason) doing?
It’s a highly laconic and emotive medium. In other words, you can say a lot of emotional, powerful things in a short amount of time, and because of that, it’s highly affective. So yeah, we’re here to rock you.
And finally, what bands or records have you been into lately? Any style, time period, you name it …
Spaceman 3, Jessica Pratt, Professor and the Efficiency Experts, Eddie Harris, Spice, Mount Kimbie, The Haxan Cloak, Jon Hopkins, Kelly Lee Owens, Paula Temple, KAS:ST, Annihilation, High Vis, Guided by Voices.
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Watch the video for “Any Day Now” here:
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Photo courtesy of Nedda Afsari
