Knoxify

A weekly peek into what makes the Knoxville music scene phe­nom­e­nal. We’ll be bring­ing you album + con­cert reviews from the Knoxville area and inter­views with local musi­cians + peo­ple behind the scenes.

Ver­tigo pro­duces a sound that is dif­fi­cult to define. That’s not a bad thing; it’s actu­ally a plus. Over the years the band has grown in their sonic range. With The Com­ing and the Going, the band adds dense lay­ers of noise and tex­ture that sep­a­rate them from most local rock bands. That said, the core is still firmly rooted in a strong, rhyth­mic rock base. The afore­men­tioned lay­ered tex­tures are a nice addi­tion. Their pre­vi­ous album, …and Miles to Go Before We Sleep, showed glimpses and peeks of the step for­ward that they actu­ally take with The Com­ing and the Going.

This pro­gres­sion is not wholly sur­pris­ing. The band is filled, front-to-back and side-to-side, with peo­ple at the top of their game. Lind­sey Stamey is a pre­mier vocal­ist with the abil­ity to bounce between singing beau­ti­fully to screech­ing inco­her­ently. Some­times it’s the sub­tle nuance of her vocal per­for­mance that takes a song from two-and-a-half stars to a four-star com­pleted effort. But that’s not a slight, in the least, to the music that she sings along to.

Her brother, Justin Stamey, pro­vides very strong, dense [in a good way] drum­ming that is quite lit­er­ally a sight to see. He furi­ously pounds on the skins in total iso­la­tion and with com­plete clar­ity. To put it crudely, he’s a hel­luva drummer.

Con­cur­rently, Nathan Engels con­tin­u­ally sup­plies a well-engineered bass line that stays to the back of the class­room until it’s time for him to step for­ward, step­ping up to the front, and shred­ding through the pro­gres­sion of all around him.

Which leaves us with Joel Rud­nick on gui­tar. Rud­nick is a tremen­dous gui­tar player, a fact that all too often is not fully appre­ci­ated. Some­times that’s of his own voli­tion, pro­vid­ing tex­tures and pure sonic noise to the track as opposed to giant, stadium-like gui­tar solos. In fit­ting with Vertigo’s over­all sound, this is a per­fect match and the crux behind every song that truly stands out.

The song “Wraith” is a stand out for the way it builds into the cho­rus. The music seems to be tee­ter­ing on the precipice, only to explode once the cho­rus goes into full mea­sure, which is a nice touch.

Why “Ethelle” is not a radio hit I haven’t the fog­gi­est. Begin­ning to end, it has that cer­tain drive that would fit per­fectly on UTK or The X. Plus, the lyrics are really well-crafted.

“Techne” show­cases Nathan’s abil­ity to step up to the fore­front while still inter­spers­ing Joel’s light touches through­out. Nice jingly tune with a good mix­ture of old and new school techniques.

The title track is a nice depar­ture, some­what, like the song “Mela­tonin” is on …and Miles to Go Before We Sleep. It’s also a good exam­ple of the use of lay­ers on this album. Lindsey’s vocals waft over the music almost as just another instrument.

The only detrac­tion, which is one I’ve held onto from the early days, is that I’d like to see the speed and vorac­ity that the band has the abil­ity to pro­duce be laid down on a stu­dio album. Ver­tigo has the tal­ent to go faster; I just wish they’d let it all hang out and go for it on a few tracks. But that’s just me… and may not count for much con­sid­er­ing I own a plethora of Dire Straits albums.

Photo by Travis Stevens, cour­tesy of the band’s MySpace page.