Review: Vended’s Self-Titled Album is the Shot of Adrenaline that Nü-Metal Didn’t Know It Needed
If we’re being completely honest, I never really got into nü-metal all that much. I mean, I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for leaving crumbs in the sheets, but it also never fully roped me in and refused to let go. Instead, it was always just kind of… there. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some classics that remain undisputed bangers to this day, but on the whole, it always just felt a little too gimmicky for me. Too much flash and unbridled theatricality without enough substance to back it up. I can appreciate the willingness to experiment and eschew traditional norms, but the fact is a lot of it just didn’t land for me.
That being said, nü-metal is obviously doing just fine without me. In fact, it seems to have experienced something of a renaissance over the past several years, if it ever even really died down at all. I’ve noticed a lot of people looking back at the early- to mid-2000s through rose colored lenses, and they’re not wrong to do so. The Aughts really were an excellent time for heavy music, with tons of soon-to-be classic albums being churned out left and right as if from a conveyor belt across all sorts of subgenres. Some of it was great, some of it was terrible, and some of it was really, really fucking weird, but these days there’s a tangible nostalgia for them all the same. To that end, I will say this: if more nü-metal bands had sounded like this back then, then I would have been a much, much bigger fan, because this shit rips, no two ways about it.
I’ve gotta hand it to them, the self-titled debut album from Des Moines, Iowa’s Vended surprised the hell out of me. I will freely admit that my expectations were low going into it, and I had already mentally prepared myself to be thoroughly unimpressed. I was worried that getting through this thing was going to be a slog, but as soon as the opening of “Paint the Skin” kicked in with a blistering drum fill and some blast beats on top of a genuinely well-written and punchy riff, I suddenly caught myself sitting up straight and audibly saying, “Oh!”
Right off the bat, Vended make it clear that they’re not here to half-ass anything or coast on an image; they’ve put some serious work into this thing, and it shows. The following track “The Far Side” occasionally dips its toes into the melodic with an eerie opening riff and an angst-fueled clean singing chorus, but rest assured, speed and ass-beating grooves are very much still the name of the game. However, this is also the point where the inevitable comparisons which I’ve been doing my best to put off for as long as possible start to make themselves plainly obvious.
Yes, vocalist Griffin Taylor and drummer Simon Crahan are the sons of Corey Taylor and Shawn “Clown” Crahan, two of the most prominent members of the only nü-metal band that I’ve ever truly given a shit about, the one and only Slipknot. And yes, Griffin’s voice, while very strong and fully dialed in, does sound strikingly similar to his dad’s, which makes sense given the genetics and his wholly unique, lifelong exposure to his father’s career. I hesitate to say that it was inevitable, because that wouldn’t be giving the guy himself enough credit, but at the same time, it would be foolish to say that no one saw it coming. What’s that saying about apples and trees…?
So yeah, I understand and respect that Vended have made a conscious effort to not simply ride the coattails of their rich and famous extended family like so many would accuse them of doing (and have), but let’s be real for a second- it totally sounds like Slipknot. Let’s just rip that Band-Aid off and get that out of our systems now. Griffin’s vocal style, the wah-heavy leads, traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus song structures, and the makeup and masks that the members don for their music videos and live shows are all dead giveaways for who and where they come from. It’s an unfortunate reality, but if their aim is to completely remove themselves from the shadows of the Nine, then they have their work cut out for them, to put it mildly.
Thankfully, I can also say with confidence that this is absolutely not just a Slipknot clone or rip-off. They may have had a leg-up, and their influences might be crystal clear, but none of that changes the fact that these motherfuckers can play. Simon Crahan is an excellent drummer with a trained ear for tasteful accents, and when he really lays into an extended fill like the one in the bridge of the penultimate track “Downfall”, it’s enough to make even the most hardened cynic raise their eyebrows. There’s no DJ or beer kegs or any other additional percussive flamboyance either, just a meat and potatoes, guitar, drum, and vocal-based approach like any other band, and that’s because they don’t need anything else, and they know it. Those who would cry nepotism should really do themselves a favor and listen to this album all the way through before simply writing it off, because that would be unnecessarily reductionist and incredibly unfair.
It would have been all too easy for these guys to lazily ape their literal forefathers and rely on the ensuing media exposure to ride out an album cycle or two, but luckily, that just doesn’t seem to be their style. Instead, they opted to give it everything they’ve got and write something that sounds genuinely angry but also has the kind of tightness that reflects the experience and maturity of other bands far their senior (but not that one). Vended clearly have something to prove, and I’ll be the first to admit, I completely underestimated them at first, but they turned around and shut me right the fuck up.
What I’m trying to say is, despite harping on so much about nü-metal at the beginning of this review, after spending a good amount of time with this album, I eventually came to the conclusion that you almost can’t call this album nü-metal at all. They might look the part, and there are a few scattered industrial elements here and there that accentuate and add a pinch of flavor, but at its core, this is just some good old-fashioned metal, period. Aesthetics aside, there aren’t any frills, gimmicks, bells or whistles to dilute things, only fast, pissed off, catchy, well-written riffs and blast beats that fit right in amongst plenty of other respectable established acts. Believe me, I was nothing if not skeptical when I first went into this thing, but now? Fuck it, I’m a believer.
Vended drops this Friday, September 20th, pre-order your copy from the band’s website here
