The Vivids - proto punk bones and post punk flesh and blood - feel "Equivalence of Form"

When you listen to The Vivids' track Equivalence of Form you may be transported to a dark space, a club in some inner city in maybe a dozen places in the world... in Los Angeles or Berlin or London or Brooklyn or Amsterdam or Toronto. The place isn't as important as the vibe or time. The sonic aesthetic feels like 1978 or 1984 or 1992 with proto punk bones and post punk flesh and blood. The battle cry bolstered by those goddamn rallying bass lines, shifting drum beats and yelpy hazy vocals might make you want to break windows or just smile broadly as you feel yourself floating on the sounds. The Vivids are a post punk band from Los Angeles and those yelps are courtesy of Sim Jackson on guitar and vocals, guitar strains on account of Brendan Snyder, pumping bass courtesy of Manya Koolzemchenko and hyper drums by Gustov Mentzer. I absolutely love this sound. Love it. Equivalence of Form is from The Vivids' 999&13 album.

-Robb Donker

PRESS NOTES:

The Vivids are an LA post-punk band consisting of Sim Jackson (vocals), Brendan Snyder (guitar), Manya Koolzemchenko(bass), and Gustov Mentzer (drums). After many years of sharing stages with bands like Disappears, Tropic of cancer, Tijuana Panthers, Sex Stains, The KVB, they’ve recorded their first full-length album - “999&13,” a moody and raw exploration of self-destruction and self-renewal shot through with spacey, bright guitars, sharply observant lyrics, and propulsive drumming that’s anything but lo-fi. The Vivids’ vision of Los Angeles are shades dark and brutally real: a "party at the end of the world" in a desperate city of permanently teen aged heartbreakers, demystified drug dealers, jaded junkies and aging hipsters. “999&13” is the Vivids’ unique vision writ large, told in the vein of Tom Verlaine, Mark E. Smith and early 80s postpunk.