Source Victoria - The Fast Escape (2007)I think I was looking forward to this era (2007-2009) not only because it's the freshest in my memory, but because a good portion of my favorite records came from Arizona local bands, who I devoted a good part of my life to during those years. This particular band has been coming up quite a bit lately, mostly when I hear of them playing shows, one of which was last night with Jimmy Eat World. Since I was a big nostalgic mess because that show was happening in Phoenix without me, and I'm a mere 10 days shy of flying to the desert, I figured there was no better time than now to revisit this record.
This is one of the bands that "almost got away". I first heard about them when Jim Adkins from Jimmy Eat World came on The Blaze to do a guest DJ spot and played the band's song "Opportunistic", which he helped produce/mix. This band kind of ran in that circle, (of which I nicknamed the "Jangle Pop Mafia" or "Western Tread Mafia") consisting of JEW, Reubens Accomplice, The Format, etc. so their name seemed to come up a lot as it is. I remember penciling it into my head and then later downloading "Burn the Pianos" off of their MySpace (cuz you could in those days . . . sorry boys! I'll give you $12 next week)
A few years later, a gal named Sarah, who did another local music show before mine, mentioned Source Victoria was interested in coming on The Blaze, per conversations with her since she books shows in Phoenix. She didn't do as much of the interview stuff and I really liked the "Burn the Pianos" song, so I hooked up with them and had them on my show. Every week I had a live band perform and it was sort of hit or miss with the sound. There are so many oddly mixed sessions due to bad mics, bad board mixing, etc, although there were more good than band, in my defense. This one however felt FLAWLESS, probably mostly because of the band's incredible musicianship. This wasn't a band that played live as often as a group like What Laura Says, but had the chops of a group with 1,000 shows under their belt. I remember feeling absolutely floored by their performance and ended up using "The Welcoming" as part of my Sounds from the Basement compilation. It's one of those "DUH, where has this band been all my life?" moments, where I realized they were there all along.
Aside from all that, this truly is an incredible record. In researching a bit, I found an article that is partially titled "Phoenix band Source Victoria's brew of distress and pleasure . . . " which I think speaks to this album pretty well. It's much darker than anticipated and is almost disarmingly beautiful amidst heavy chords and lead singer Brendan Murphy's husky vocals. It plays out with the weight of a thousand life experiences, with instrumenation coming in just as full and exhausting (in a good way) It's a pretty big departure from the rest of the Jangle Pop Mafia as well as the folk/country leanings of a lot of Arizona bands.
The big thing about this band is their huge mainstream potential. This is one of the few bands that when I play them on my speakers at work, I almost always have one person ask me "hey, what are you listening to?" Since we're around music all day and hear music all day, for something to stick out like that is a good sign. The minute I heard "Until We Crack", I knew it was a smash, and was played quite frequently on my little radio show. Songs like "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948" are geniusly crafted with some insane hooks while many of the songs drift off into a heavy instrumental jam. They are currently recording another full length, the songs of which I've heard sound much more like "Until We Crack" in the catchy sense. Overall this band feels like one that is entirely focused while writing and recording and likely exhaust themsevles with how much of themselves is needed to pull off this sort of optomistic melancholy.
My only sadness about this band is that they play pretty exclusively in Phoenix due to family, jobs, etc. I actually put on a show when I was back in AZ last October just so I could book them and hear them live (among others) It's the only way that I've been able to hear the new music and I'm pretty much dying to hear what's next from them.
As of now, the band has this record up for download on their site for free. Just click on "take the fast escape" and a zip file will open up. No excuses then, friends. I've made this REALLY easy.
http://www.sourcevictoria.net/
The only live performances ones were either really bad quality or of new songs, so sorry for the one dimensional video. I do like that the beginning card says "Just Listen". Good point, sir. No need for fancy language here, the music speaks for itself.
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