Vulture Raid S/T EP - Review

This is a review I wrote of a new band's debut EP.

Vulture Raid – S/T EP

 

Vulture Raid’s debut EP opens with a soulful piano solo before launching into a banging punk rock tune, complete with an Anti-Flag-esque lead guitar. When Oscar Capps IV comes in on vocals he sounds harder, rougher, and older than he did on his former band’s album, roughly 2.5 years prior. He sounds like someone who has gone through some stuff, which he has. He has you singing along with the chorus by the second time around.

 

The rest of this album stays hard, fast, honest, and raw. It comes off as a very personal collection of songs, yet it speaks to some universal truths. The lines, “I am not your enemy/ You made me your enemy/ I don’t have time for enemies” are some of my favorites.

In just five years Oscar IV has gone from recording his first EP, containing a song titled “No Decaf,” to songs about taking life on headfirst. Only time will tell where Vulture Raid goes from here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s far and wide.

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After (Some) Time Has Passed

After (Some) Time Has Passed

It’s almost fun to look back

at trinkets, work books, photos

after (some) time has passed.

After the sorrow has melted

the feelings of failure fade

and I can see those memories

as things that have shaped me,

instead of things that have left me

un-whole.

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Back Of the Bar... But...

Back Of the Bar…
But…

 

As I get older,

I am more apt to stand at the back

of the bar/venue/crowd

taking in the scene of

a (punk) band and their audience.

 

But there are times in which

I still feel the need

to be on the barricade,

screaming lyrics back

to the band at whose feet

I reside.

 

But sometimes I want to relive

my youth and bounce around

in the pit, rolling upright over

various body parts of others,

falling but never hitting the ground.

 

I feel alive, revived

after a night of

music, comradery,

and ultimately, love.

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Set List Poems

 I call these 'Set List Poems.' I take a band's song catalog and use their song titles to create a sort-of found poem. The title of each poem is the band that each poem is derived from. (I did have to sprinkle a few words in just a few places to make them make any sort of sense.)

The Briggs

 

Control Alt-Right

delete.

I’m back to higher ground.

 

Third World War,

gridlocked,

on the Devil’s Playground

until someone gets hurt,

broken bones.

 

It’s harder to stand.

Panic!

 

What was I thinking?

It’s not all on me.

Keep us alive,

believe.

 

It won’t take long

as we charge

into the sun.

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Ducky Boys

 

The ballad of the forgotten,

you sing the chorus

‘til the wheel fall off.

 

Another day

of me against the world.

I guess I’m broken,

but you can’t break me.

 

Bombs away,

celebrate,

disappear.

 

I was intoxicated.

Wait, I lied,

I’m feeling alive.

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