Viper Creek Club - Letters Album Review - REDEFINE magazine - music art film journalism

If you own a pair of comfortable dancing shoes, Viper Creek Club’s album, Letters, is sure to bring out your inner Fred Astaire or Boogaloo Shrimp. No doubt put together with an array of synths and an endless cache of ideas, all the electronic blips and subtle sound effects will draw comparisons to bands like the Postal Service or Stereolab, but I found that the morose aesthetic of “Your Paris” and “Twelve Step” has a commonality with British dream pop.

These songs are flacked by uptempo dance jams, which are far more creative than stuff like 3OH3!, Cobra Starship, Owl City, and whatever else the Warped Tour set is listening to.

Viper Creek Club’s lyrics are also relatively interesting and definitely not completely fucking vapid like those of other bands that I mentioned. Not to throw stones or anything, but let’s be honest: you seldom find a band that can have complex words and concepts mixed with danceable beats.

What is really great about Letters is how solid it is from beginning to end. Most debut records tend to have missteps — and even the most minor ones throw off the overall consistency of the final product. Viper Creek Club do a great job in producing a variety of songs that show the range of the group, as well as sequencing the tracks in a way that don’t throw a monkey wrench for this dance party mix.

In a genre where the basic elements of pop music are ignored in lieu of breakneck beats and glorified teenage poetry, Letters puts a fresh spin on a tired scene. If only indie rock bands can take a cue from this duo…