The Vital Might: Red Planet

The Vital Might is a newcomer to the alternative rock scene hailing from Boston. Red Planet is their second full-length album displaying a wealth of ambiance, groovy beats, driving rhythms and soaring melodies. The songs are adventurous at times with nicely varying use of dynamics and should please most fans of indie rock.

The calm stillwater sections are where The Vital Might truly shines. For example in Superstitious Wish this is evident, but the strong frantic contrast that is also present on that song sounds forced and gives impression of artsycraftsy composing régime. Similarly there's an abrupt buildup on the song 5 O' Clock which sounds fairly forced and leads me to believe this band still needs to mature up a bit more in terms of songwriting. However, the music is good for the most part and shares fair share of resemblance to A Perfect Circle, Radiohead and The Mars Volta. On the downside, the vocalist Andy Milk doesn't quite deliver but has somewhat plain and thin voice, which often just breaks the mood set by the music. Regardless, at times his voice suits the music quite well and the songs are enjoyable. Musically there are some weaker moments still - Chime, for example, is just a repetitive track that sounds like an intro that never ends but is put on repeat instead.

Overall, Red Planet is quite a mediocre group in the wealth of alternative rock bands but they show promise... by focusing more on their strengths and striving away from the overtly arty parts they can come up with a strong follow-up album. In addition, they need to gain themselves more identity as the cover of A Perfect Circle's Sleeping Beauty for example lacked personality and felt more like a poor man's attempt on duplicating the original.





http://www.thevitalmight.com/

Tracklist:
1. Phantom Spaceman
2. The Truth
3. City
4. Trouble
5. Chime
6. Saturday
7. Seasons
8. 5 O'clock
9. Superstitious Wish
10. The Greatest Man
11. Sleeping Beauty

Line-up:
Gauthier, Rick: Bass
Milk, Andy: Vocals/Guitars
Kraker, Evan: Drums

Produced by: The Vital Might & Taylor Barefoot
Mastering by: Z, Nick