Review: Little Vegas Lies – ‘The Domino EP’


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Dewsbury’s Little Vegas Lies return to the studio with ‘Domino’, their follow-up to the brilliant debut EP ‘A Truth Not Far Away’.

It’s the quintet’s second release since their formation a year and a half ago, and on this evidence one wonders where they’ll be another 18 months down the line.

Lead single ‘Standing Room Only’ kicks things off on the right note, a simple opening combusting into a storm of power chords and melding into a sweet sliding guitar that recurs throughout. “Feel like the last stand in town, trailblazin’ ship that’s run aground” Simon Moore sings, his vocals more akin to the contemplative conversationalist down the pub than the chanting egocentrics that populate the rock world these days. That said, the elegiac and downcast mood is obliterated by the song’s firebrand chorus, the refrain of “don’t wanna be in your way tonight” somehow sounding affirming. Building toward a wave, the silence that erupts into a cacophonic storm 4 minutes in is pure musical catharsis.

Eponymously-titled ‘Domino’ comes next, riding on the back of a Wildhearts-esque classic rock riff that one imagines goes down a storm in a gig setting. The two-ton riff seems almost a little contained in the studio, though it’s not a bad song, and the final line “Doesn’t take me long before I lose control!” complements the scuzzy, rollicking sound spun through the previous 3:30. There’s also an insistent riff buried in the mix of the song’s final third that no doubt isn’t so innocuous when the guitars are jacked up to full capacity on the stage.

A British guitar band styled in the mould of Oasis, Stone Roses and Ride, Little Vegas Lies are masters at marrying slow-burning verses with punchy, guttural guitar choruses. Indeed, track three ‘Hang Fire’ starts on a riff that could’ve come straight off  ‘Be Here Now’, Oasis’ grandiose post-fame album, and though the song mutates (reminding one more than once of Oasis’ polar opposites, Hurts) into a catchy enfilade of “Hang fire!” chants during the chorus, it’s not long before the snarl is back: “You never came to see me swagger on the stage” Moore remarks, channelling guitarist Steven McNamara’s lyrics. Interestingly it’s another song that seems like it’ll be suited to the gig arena as much as, if not more than, the studio, particularly in respect to the chorus’s sing-a-long refrain.

The EP is rounded off with its best track, ‘Set Me On Fire’, a song that showcases LVL’s inimitable penchant for earing out lovely finger-picking asides that marry into staccato guitar riffs. Another point to note about LVL is that they create a sound that somehow feels stripped back, yet feedback effects and a ‘watery’ synergy between the bass and guitar – think Stone Roses’ ‘Second Coming’ – create the opposite effect. However they’re achieving their sound, it’s working. “Set me on fire and I’ll feel fine!” hollers Moore during the chorus, and a killer solo rips the song’s second half apart, the lead guitar this time unhoused from the prevalence of the bass and drums. Fitting then that it’s the lead guitar’s notes that are the last to fade, the last to catch flame and set the band alight. A stonker of a set closer, if ever there was one.

“I’ve been trying so long to find somewhere I belong” goes the lyrics of ‘Set Me On Fire’. These five needn’t look any longer. They belong right here.

(Ronnie McCluskey)




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One Response

  1. Sonia 31 May, 2012