Review: Vanarin

Vanarin is an indie grunge-rock band based in Swindon, England who've been in action since 2011. Bassist Mikki Vyrus sent me five of their newest songs for review, all of which can be demo'd on his YouTube page. Here's a list of the tracks:

(1) Because of You
(2) Been So Long
(3) Mistake
(4) 4U
(5) Getting Old

Kicking off with "Because of You," lead singer Mike goes from sounding like Billie Joe Armstrong in the leading chorus to a raucous Aaron Lewis halfway through the first verse and back again. Its definitely a tune that sticks in your head, but the lyrics are a little repetitive. "Been So Long" has cool guitar riffage that really seems to carry the song. The one flaw is that the verses tend to sound kinda forced. You have to pay attention to pick up on that though, because you're probably focusing more on enjoying the cool instrumentals. "Mistake" is the one song out of the entire compilation that I can't really get into. It's not the song itself...I've never really been a fan of slower rainy-day type music. The guitar work reminds me of Nickleback, who's music always gets me depressed (I don't know why, so don't ask). "4U" is one of my favorite Vanarin tunes (tied with "Getting Old"). This is one of their grungier songs and the instrumentals really remind of Nirvana (my favorite band!!) "Getting Old" follows that same feel, it's intro riff reminding me a lot of Cobain's "Lithium."

Hm...maybe not tied anymore. Yeah, pretty sure this track beats all the others. The instrumentals are by far the best and its incredible how similar the back-up vocals are to Dave Grohl when he used to back-up Kurt. I think Vanarin should do it more often. Its awesome to hear a new band with that same spirit and sound. I will say that the band should try to use the word "you" in their music less. In one song (can't remember which) it felt like every other word was "you," which made it seem less creative (its a very easy word to rhyme with). As far as I know, this is the first compilation Vanarin have ever written together, and while I feel the lyrics could be better, they did a damn good job on the instrumentals. I look forward to hearing what else they have to offer. In the meantime, I'll have to settle for their awesome covers...

Check out Vanarin's cover of Remedy by Seether!

...and Mikki's cool bass cover of Best of You by Foo Fighters :D