Use Me album review by Chris High
Okay. Cards on the table: I’d not heard of PVRIS (Pronounced Paris) until I was asked to review this, the Massachusetts triumvirate’s third album Use Me. Now that they have come across the old music radar, however, it’s going to a quick stop at the record shop to get hold of its predecessors White Noise and All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell!
Fusing contemporary rock with an all immersive 90s sub-cultural Techno beat, this is an album to absolutely kill to have in your collection. Vibrant. Exciting. Intoxicating. All of these and more sum up Lynn Gunn’s vocals, alongside the hypnotic contributions of Alex Babinski and Brian MacDonald.
Take the opening Gimme A Minute. The darkness of its cutting edge slowness initially, which is then imbued by a powerful infusion of anxiety and fear, shows that here are a band who know exactly the effect they want to cause and then with a devastating efficiency go about getting what they want.
There’s surely going to many a venue simply throbbing with this over the coming months, with soundtracks to TV and Movies banging on the door for its inclusion.
This is then quickly and delightfully followed by Dead Weight which is simply a magical voyage into obliviousness. It’s lyrics at once both vivid and oblique, make of it what you will but boring and mainstream you most definitely is not!
Originally going by the name of Operation Guillotine, Pvris are cutting heads from many a head by spearheading a revolution of their own creating. Think Lana Del Rey, add some superhot chilli, mix liberally with a quart or so of Gold Star Tequila, ignite and stand well back. This is the outcome your senses will delight in having given a single spin of this album
Loveless is arguably as mainstream as Use Me gets and underlines not only the band’s brilliance when indulging in the somewhat experimental. This is a delicious love song filled with emotive language, sublime acoustics and a synthesised undertone that evokes images of autumnal fields shrouded in mist.
In short, and even taking it track by glorious track, it is impossible to choose a track of the album. Each leaves as unique a sense of longing as its predecessor and that, in and of itself, is rare, rare quality that simply begs to be applauded.
An honest, vital and massively brilliant album by anybody’s way of thinking.
Tracklist:
1. Gimme A Minute
2. Dead Weight
3. Stay Gold
4. Good To Be Alive
5. Death of Me
6. Hallucinations
7. Old Wounds
8. Loveless
9. January Rain
10. Use Me
11. Wish You Well
