Nico Vega – Nico Vega
Myspace Records
February 3, 2009

What It Sounds Like:  Emo-tinged chick fronted pop-rock with hints of goth.  It’s the pretty girl that you knew in high-school that decided that A&F wasn’t for her anymore, so she decided to start being more punky, introspective, edgy, and overall – annoying and lame.  The dudes who back her up probably think that she’s the most inspired person on the planet.

A common man is a common cold / I’m bigger than a body /And sweeter than gold / I’ve got swords for hands / And detective eyes / You’ve never known something quite like / The back of my thighs sings Ava Volkman on Million Years while her band does their best goth pop/rock impressions.  The screams of privileged youth?  Mommy, can I please move to L.A. so I can be in a rock band?  I wanna be one of the BOYS!

Nico Vega leave a bad taste in my mouth, only because their debut record doesn’t give us anything really new, and gives us too many one-liners to make us cringe.  The back of your thighs, Miss. Volkman?  I’d rather not.  Her lyrics here sound like one of those girls who wrote dark poetry all over her notebooks and all the boys told her how amazing it was just so they could try to get in her pants.  The tragedy is that she believed them, and at 29 years old, she’s still holding hard onto those teenage glory days when she was the edgiest chick at school in Oregon.

But man, the music isn’t bad.  So So Fresh actually rocks pretty good for a song titled, um, freaking So So Fresh.  But it all simply sounds uninspired, like a trio that wants to be a rock band so badly but can’t write anything that’s actually believable.  You’re not a teenager anymore Aja – we need something to hold onto.  I just wish we had a little more sincerity – a little more realism in these lyrics.  She has a really theatric voice as well, and if that’s your thing, maybe you’ll get into this more than me, but personally, it’s been kind of a tough one.  For example, you can only get so far with songs like Gravity.  The music doesn’t break any new ground, but it doesn’t necessarily need to.  It’s got some energetic pop/rock with bits of horror and punk thrown in, but when you’re singing lines like this…

Over time you can kill me / But I’ll resurrect so
da da da da da da da da
You’re never gonna thrill me / But you can kiss my ass so
da da da da da da da da
Woahh / You’re bringing me down.
Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up!

….it gets to be a lost cause.

Is it entertaining?  Certainly, to a point.  There are worse things out there, and they keep they energy up for most of the disc.  You know what?  They probably put on a pretty good show!  They’re clearly passionate enough about what they do, but even with that said, I don’t agree that what they’re doing holds any artistic weight.

I’m filing this under “Sometimes Guilty Pleasure”, even though it probably won’t get broken out of my collection again until – well – I simply come across it.  There are just better things to do with your time.  To make matters worse, this thing was released on the death slot of record labels – Myspace Records.  This is where music goes to die.  What has Myspace Records ever put out that was of any significance?

I’ll bet you 50 bucks that these guys had their wardrobe picked out for their set before they even decided what their set would be.

4.5/10

If you had to listen to two tracks:  So So Fresh / Family Train