You’d think that Violens were aiming squarely at being the latest entry in the list of canonised and cool NYC bands – the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth, the Strokes. Instead, like their contemporaries Twin Shadow, they’re a refreshingly well produced and clean-cut cross between the frazzled sunshine-pop of the Byrds or 13th Floor Elevators and British post-punks Wire and the Cure. With songs concerning “nightmares, the passage of time, speculations on spiritual messages and accounts of drug-induced hallucinations”, they also not only share the latter’s paranoid gothic streaks but the former’s breezy transcendentalism.

WEB: http://violens.net/

Add to your festival schedule.