V-Hero

Stay Back! I'm Radioactive - Demo


V-Hero’s CD package for ‘The Demo What We Made’ (clearly I was given the cheap version) includes hand-written artwork, instructions for use (1. Place CD in drive. 2. Drain of all liquid. 3. Warm through to 27°. 4. Bath in bottled wonder) and moral messages such as ‘Don’t eat Nestlé'. An interesting read, and a good incentive to give the music a listen. On following V-Hero’s first instruction for use, however, I was hit with the intro to track one ‘Don’t Shoot The Messenger’. I was a little uncertain as to whether the band were trying to be experimental, or if they just couldn't play very well. It soon became apparent that this was not even a discordant introduction that would eventually drop into a song. As the track progressed, V-Hero’s in-your-face racket began to irritate beyond belief, and I breathed a sigh of relief when, 3 minutes later, the song came to a sloppy end. The second track of the demo, entitled ‘This Is Latin For: He’ll Ruin Everything’, has a much more pleasing sound and a catchy guitar riff, but is let down by the vocals, which scream and yell incomprehensibly. The song then ends with another drawn out mess, disintegrating into the same, awful introduction heard on track one. ‘I Fight With Petrol’ again features a catchy guitar riff, and although the vocals are still shouted, they seem a little more melodic, and thus quite palatable. The final offering, in the form of ‘And They Painted The Town Dead’ should, I feel, have been the opening track. There's a strong introduction, softer vocals and a better structure than any of the other songs, although it still sticks to V-Hero’s trashy punk formula. Although it sounds like V-Hero have a lot of fun together and don’t take themselves or their output too seriously (which can be a negative point all too common amongst other bands) they may want to listen to the demo from the perspective of an audience if they want to produce a marketable product. That said, after a (somewhat substantial) number of run-throughs, ‘The Demo What We Wrote’ makes me wince slightly less each time, and even begins to grow on me. V-Hero are definitely not my cup of tea, but fans of similar bands (one that springs to mind is Biff Tannen) may be interested in what they have to offer.