Barsuk
2006
Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
About This Album
Viva Voce's latest, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, could have added the subtitle, "And Let the Stoner Rock In." The Portland husband-and-wife duo of Anita and Kevin Robinson have swapped some of the spacier excursions of their previous records for enveloping layers of '70s guitar fuzz and blustery rhythms familiar to bong-hitters everywhere. Viva Voce have used these sounds before, but not to this extent. Yet this is stoner rock for the indie set, so every suggestion of Led Zeppelin or Queen gets filtered through a Sonic Youth or Yo La Tengo aesthetic, which helps keep the bombast and pagan iconography at bay. Disc-opener "Believer" may hint at a Jimmy Page-like stomp with its maximum-buzz guitar riff, distorted bass, and overdubbed handclap percussion, but in Viva Voce's hands it's not unlike something the Pink Mountaintops would record if they had happier pot. "From the Devil Himself," which provides the album's title and sums up its anti-bloodsucker themes, is a catchy double-time blast of Anita Robinson's processed lead guitar and walls of percussion supporting the Mamas & the Papas-like harmonies, a reminder of the pop sensibilities at the core of the Viva Voce's music.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,8,9 and 10)

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