Review – Virtue “For You Alone”
Piss off, Sarah McLeod and your band of try-hards! Jesus! There’s nothing super about you guys anymore, now that Melbourne’s Virtue have eclipsed your recent efforts with their latest EP, “For You Alone”.
Elly Lanza, Glen Cavenagh & Mark DeGiorgio formed Virtue in 1999, releasing a ten-track live album in May of that year. The sound that Virtue have captured on this, their third recording, is probably in the same ball-park as the aforementioned band but displays more genuineness than that band is putting out nowadays, and they’re considered top-notch! Meantime Virtue are still doing that live thing around their hometown with ventures into the media including Channel 31 and Sanity magazine, retaining a credibility that the other band lost long ago.
Virtue is a multi-faceted band whose muse is quite difficult to pinpoint. Whilst Do It Again has a riff reminiscent of Teen Spirit, For You Alone and All I Have seem almost like rhapsodic epics in their complexity. And whilst the cover photo might suggest they’re a hip-hop troupe (their look is like that of Oscillate or Josh & Amiel) looks are very deceiving when their sound broaches Nirvana, Live, Creed, U2, Doradus and maybe even Garbage (but only maybe, and even then only either of the first two records).
My verdict on For You Alone? Sen-bloody-sational. Virtue look set to pale everyone into insignificance. Seek them out, or click here to tell them to come to your town – soon!