The Demon Joke – Vennart (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Someone who already has Oceansize, Biffy Clyro and British Theatre on their CV could be seen as someone who has contributed enough to the face of contemporary music. Not Mike Vennart. He instead chose to use is recent musical down time from life on the road with the aforementioned Glaswegian wunderkinds to put out an album under his own name. And if Oceansize were revered for their exploration of modern psychedelic territories, Vennart’s sound is in many ways a continuation of that mission.

Rather than pastiche the paisley musical colours of a former time, Vennart again manages to take the essence of that genre and blend it with contemporary sounds and the result is a brilliant blend of shimmering textures and euphoric walls of sound layered over a structure built on tasteful and precise song writing. Hats are tipped to the past psychedelic scene but the rest of the suit is very much cut from the cloth of the here and now. They say that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it but maybe those who do know their musical history know just which bits are worth repeating.