Viet Cong: "Continental Shelf"

There’s something exciting about getting to know a band as the band is simultaneously getting to know itself. This summer, idiosyncratic post-punk outfit Viet Cong—whose members include Matt Flegel and Mike Wallace, formerly of Calgary’s Women—reissued their tour-only EP “Cassette” on Mexican Summer, an almost voyeuristic look into a group of young men trying to regroup and find their footing. Channeling the mischievous angularity of early Talking Heads one minute, and a more sunburnt approach to Women’s paranoid noise-pop the next, Viet Cong seemed willing to try anything once, sometimes all at once.

So while “Cassette”‘s cover of Bauhaus’ “Dark Entries” might have seemed a little out of place, it makes more sense in the context of “Continental Shelf”, the first offering from their proper debut. This one has a strange weather about it: Dark and unwieldy, with stormy dissonance, gloom-drunk melodies, ghostly cheerleader coos, and the brief employment of the “Be My Baby” beat for good measure. Viet Cong still sound like a band being tugged in opposing directions, but here they control the discordance with confidence, transforming “Continental Shelf” into something disquietingly divine.

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