[review 2006: the honourable mentions]

When I saw Viva Voce open for Sleater-Kinney in 2005, they had two things going for them: “Alive With Pleasure” and “High Highs,” two terrific songs that floated in a sea of some rather peculiar material. Whereas those two songs at least had some neat hooks and Anita Robinson’s angelic voice as enticements, many of the other songs seemed to have been cut from entirely different cloth. Ponderous, ominous songs that seemed to have no business being anywhere near light, crunchy indie pop, the schism only made sense if you attributed all the fun songs to Anita and the weird songs to the other person on stage, manning the drum set.

That person turns out to be Kevin Robinson, Anita’s husband, and of course the songwriting division isn’t nearly that simple. The Portland duo have been putting out albums for a couple of years now in a strangely DIY-domestic environment. The oddities on The Heat Can Melt Your Brain (which come off a lot better on record, by the way) weren’t the result of two songwriters trying to go their own directions, but rather one couple trying out lots of random stuff to see what stuck. Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, on the other hand, is more focused and less experimental; the space-age larger-than-life noodling of “The Center of the Universe” is gone, but so is the sunny, jangly indie rock of “Daylight” and “The Lucky Ones.” Instead we get a loose tribute to faux-wood panelling and the 70s; Viva Voce have a new muse, and the result is far more cohesive than their previous album.

I don’t know very much about the music Get Yr Blood Sucked Out evidently recalls, so I can’t comment on whether it’s stoner rock or prog rock or whatever (though I can tell you it’s, uh, not funk or disco). What I can tell you is the album leans much more on Anita’s wailing guitar solos and Kevin’s soft vocals than previous albums, and the songs are more complex, the production more layered—quite a feat considering they probably mixed the album in their living room (their last two albums were recorded “at home, with love”). Though the album never seems as dark and foreboding as its title would suggest, it’s not a particularly light or breezy affair; there’s no “Alive With Pleasure” here, though “Faster Than A Dead Horse” and “Drown Them Out” come close. But what is here is fairly convincing, from the relentless march of “Believer” to the tranquil love-in of “Special Thing.”

Only occasionally does Get Yr Blood Sucked Out stumble; unfortunately, all the mistakes get shuffled near the back, with “Helicopter” and “How To Nurse a Bruised Ego” reaching a bit too far and “We Do Not Fuck Around” perhaps relying too much on the juxtaposition of sweet ballad and swearing. But the scope of the album is enormous—several songs sound like they should be part of a rock opera—and even with those raised expectation, the band strikes gold far more often than not. Get Yr Blood Sucked Out is a fine album, and perhaps another harbinger of things to come.