Veil Veil Vanish: Into a New Mausoleum

We can get the obvious out of the way quickly: Veil Veil Vanish is a lot (no, seriously, a lot) like The Cure if debut album Into a New Mausoleum is any indication. There are the quickly-strummed one-note-at-a-time guitars, the washes of sound, the new wave drums, and the close-to-tears vocals as points of comparison, and really, if I had asked you which band would come up with a song called “Shadows Dripping Like Honey Kissing”, you’d have said The Cure, right? Right? Now that we’ve established that, we can concentrate on the fact that the songs that Veil Veil Vanish has written are engaging pieces of music even if they’re not really all that catchy. While it starts out sounding like it’s going to be six rewrites of “Lovesong” (or at least “Fascination Street”), the last two tracks go a long way toward redeeming the mimicry of the first four. The aforementioned “Shadows Dripping Like Honey Kissing” would actually have made a fabulous little single, with its U2-like guitars and powerful choruses, though final track “All Hands in Prayer” is the one that’ll get lighters in the air and pools of mascara on the floor. “All Hands in Prayer” is a beautifully executed goth slow burn, something that fans of bands like Sisters of Mercy and Joy Division would die for, all washes of distorted guitar and soaring vocals over that ever-reliable steady beat and rolling bassline. “You can hardly feel the distance / Gold pins break the skin / Tell them all you’re alone” sings Keven Tecon in the track, and it’s like 1981 all over again. Sure, Veil Veil Vanish sounds like the Cure, but at least they do a good job at it.