Vault 51
Kid
(Self-Release)
Vault 51 has produced an ethereal hard rock experience with their new EP, Kid. The band has an attractive, sleek sound with good quality, driving electric guitar work combining with just the right amount of heavy programming. The music has a “dark quality” to it, similar to that produced by bands like Breaking Benjamin and Starset. Musically, Vault 51 probably falls in between those two artists.
Their new EP is the band’s first release, but it’s promising for the future of the band. It has a crisp production sound, and besides the album’s instrumentation, the band’s front man, Landon Jones, has a unique, very versatile voice. Although there aren’t a lot of necessarily guttural lows on the album, Jones flows well from highs to lows and back again. The band’s guitarist Tom Jepson helps fill out the vocal register, doing background vocals.
The album is, mood-wise, angry at times and meditative at times. The hardest track on the album is the second one, called “We Don’t Care.” That song opens with some sick heavy guitar riffs before jumping off into Jones’s singing. On “We Don’t Care,” the speaker seems to have taken matters into his own hands regarding something afflicting a loved one of theirs on track one, “Thirty Six.”
The album feels very cohesive, almost like it tells a story. Most of the songs have differently styled openings, but the band consistently circles back to a heavy hard rock sound throughout the release. Even though it’s not necessarily remarkably original, that isn’t necessarily a strike against Kid. It is fresh and something easy to get into.
“Start again and fight your way; fight against the pain!” Jones sings on the album’s fifth track, “Mourning View.” It’s a good message that helps tie together a good album that is surely worth listening to if you’re into dark, heavy alternative rock.
The album ends with an aggressive sixth track that again helps tie everything together, on which Jones sings, “I just want to be okay,” and after listening, you can’t help but empathize.
Purchase the album here: Physical | iTunes
