ALBUM REVIEW: Hit It! – Vianova
Berlin-based band VIANOVA have stormed onto the scene with their debut album Hit It!, here to make a statement with their self-proclaimed ‘angry dance music.’ It’s a visceral, insanely creative, high-octane journey from a band that refuses to be pigeonholed into a single genre.
The opening track, Squier Talk, sets the stage perfectly. It begins with a syncopated beat and a slow build, where auto-tuned vocals add a layer of curious intrigue before the track erupts into a grungy guitar onslaught. VIANOVA strikes a difficult balance here, weaving sultry vocals with raw screams to create something dark and heavy without being overwhelming to the listener. The bridge, which sounds like the backing track for an anime fight scene, features guitars riffling through scales alongside pounding drums, all while the haunting lyric “don’t get carried away” lingers in your mind. The song ramps up towards a chaotic, organ-topped finale, showcasing the band’s clear technical ability from the outset.
This is immediately followed by the whiplash-inducing Más Rápido. It opens with what can only be described as haunting elevator music as imagined by GORILLAZ, before swiftly diving into a hardcore-inspired verse. The ever constant speed changes and mismatched elements are evocative of newer KNOCKED LOOSE, making it a track you can delight in discovering new details in with each listen. A pre-chorus that picks at an acoustic guitar against a crowd of shouting seamlessly launches into a section that feels like the perfect setup for a wall of death. While the varied singing is great, it’s the haunting, instrumental moments that recall early PANIC! AT THE DISCO which offer a particular delight.
Wheel Of Fortune shifts gears into an upbeat, groovy anthem that wouldn’t sound out of place on a record by THE HOME TEAM It demonstrates vocalist Alexander Kerski’s incredible versatility, with a soaring, impactful chorus that makes you imagine a whole room grooving in unison. Fans of THE CAB’s Whisper War will feel right at home. What’s most impressive is how, while every song is distinctly different, they seamlessly sit together as a collective record – a very difficult achievement to pull off.
This continues with Oh No (Believer), which rides the same groovy train but features some of the album’s most intense guitar and drum lines. The chorus is a very catchy, gleeful noise-adjacent piece that somehow just, works. It even features growls that would feel at home on an ARCHITECTS album, all produced with the polish of STATIC DRESS. For those who prefer a more direct approach, Marimba delivers that in-your-face metal sound from the beginning. It’s one of the least produced tracks on the album but is quintessentially VIANOVA, offering great shreds and shoegazey vocals for purists.
The digital opening of Melanchronic feels like a cyberpunk fever dream from the 80s. It’s slower than its counterparts on Hit It! and atmospheric with classic piano interludes, but ends up being the most underwhelming song on the record; it could have benefitted from being slowed down even more to heighten its impact. Yet, it nails a difficult feat: blending mathcore seamlessly with other instruments. The bridge, in particular, sounds like a young Brendon Urie was let loose in the studio with an acoustic guitar – truly haunting stuff.
A beautiful transition leads into Whatever Alright, a track with something so inherently danceable it could easily be played in a dark underground nightclub under strobe lights. It’s a welcome change of pace and unintentionally becomes a stand-out, a must-listen for fans of THORNHILL, (though VIANOVA are no copycats). This is followed by the ethereal piano interlude, Two More Hours, a moment of calm where you’d hardly guess it’s the same band.
Future Nostalgia expertly builds momentum towards what feels like a big finish. Halfway through, the song breaks away and launches into something larger-than-life and grandiose, as if COLDPLAY were guest-starring. It’s an arena-ready song that delivers chills – certainly an accomplishment for a debut record. And just when you think the album should have ended, Uh Yaya arrives with a 60s opening that feels like an encore. It then unexpectedly becomes the heaviest song on the record, explosive with anger and screams that verge on pig squeals. It’s as if someone took SLEEP TOKEN and PERIPHERY before injecting them with a lethal dose of deathcore, complete with a breakdown that makes it an album standout.
While it’s difficult to top that, the band crafts a perfect closer with Obsolete. Complete with a saxophone addition, it feels like the perfect soundtrack for the lights to slowly rise in a smoky cabaret lounge as the end credits roll. The lyrics here feel the most emotional on the album, and the song is sonically full and layered, leaving the listener in stunned silence as its final moments fade.
It is a rare and electrifying moment when a new album arrives with the force to genuinely astonish a seasoned listener, yet VIANOVA‘s Hit It! possesses precisely that jaw-dropping power. The album masters so many disparate genres, encompassing a sublime fusion of shoegaze’s ethereal haze, grunge’s raw grit, metal’s punishing weight, electronica’s synthetic pulse, disco’s infectious groove, and rock’s anthemic heart. The resulting soundscape is akin to someone pouring every genre into a blender and leaving the output to manifest in the hands of a DJ. The record’s relentless, breakneck pace, while undeniably exhilarating, occasionally makes the overarching journey for the listener faintly uniform, despite each individual track boldly asserting its own unique identity. Nevertheless, the final verdict remains unequivocal: Hit It! stands as an absolute must-listen, and it’s dazzling debut leaves VIANOVA as a formidable and thrilling new voice in the alternative music scene.
Rating: 8/10
Hit It! is out now via Arising Empire.
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