Bon Vivants – Black Honey CD

Bon Vivants – Black Honey CD

Years ago, Punk and indie rock came from a shared point of origin in the form of The Modern Lovers. Its repetitions and prickly touches inspired angry, young heads such as the Sex Pistols while Jonathan Richmans disenchantment and embrace of melody as a form of counter-culture to the dominant psychedelic and progressive modes of the early to mid 1970's could be said to have informed indie rock as practiced by bands like the Shins etc. Bon Vivants represent both these tendencies that they share with Modern Lovers.

"Reappearances" contains all the elements of conventional song played through Bon Vivants fuzzy approach. Every note trailed by the light haze, every clap and sung note echoes like it was recorded in a toilet. Those vocals sounding somewhere between Dave Thomas from Pere Ubu if the drugs worked and Lou Barlow circa Bakesale. This heavily pop sensibility is rarely varied from as "Suffering Bastard" attests; a heavy, noisy intro implies something different but it settles into the sort of punchy, indie rock number that makes up much of the record.

Despite the largely economical approach to song, the best moments are the more expansive. A or M operates along more elongated lines; working cycles and repetitions that are caked in psychedelic haze, stretching out over eight minutes.

While this record hardly constitutes anything massively new, Bon Vivants are highly competent purveyors of a kind of lo-fi garage pop. 7/10 -- Alex Kakafikas / Foxy Digitalis (29 October, 2008)