SHREDnews

By: Ashley Pagano

From Boston, Massachusetts come five musicians that together form The Venetia Fair. The name was extremely unfamiliar to me, but I ended up questioning why I had not heard them before after taking a listen to their album, The Circus. The band creates a sound together that really drew me in. Classifying the group into a genre of music is quite a challenge, for they have a mix of rock, punk, hardcore, and basically any other genre you can think up. Needless to say, the band is definitely crazy, but what makes up for it is the fact that they are also crazy good.

“A Man Like Me” starts it all with heavy guitars, screaming vocals, curse words, and leaves an intense first impression. The vocals are so extreme, and Benny Santaro, the lead vocalist of the group, sings with an insane amount of emotion, and sells it. The lyrics are very blunt, but I think it’s best that way. The mix of the rock sound with a hint of jazz to it is an interesting, but perplexing mix that left me quite intrigued. The album continued on into “Let’s Just Forget About This”. The description stays the same. The music stands out from other bands mainly because it’s just so unique. It was literally impossible for me to stand completely still while listening to this track, or any of the tracks really. With my foot tapping, and head banging I definitely enjoyed the song.

Changing it up is “Because You’re Lonely (The Circus)”. The lyrics are what reeled me into this one. Very strange, but again, has the out of the ordinary factor to it. The genre is more like something you’d hear in a musical rather than what’d you hear on the stage at a rock concert. If that songisn’t insane enough, “The Ringleader ( Nonus The Hobo)” which, of course, makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, still has a sound that you can’t ignore. There’s piano notes clashing with the rest of the instruments, but still sounding good, along with other various instruments present in the track. The lyrics are clear and audible, but make no sense to me, yet that just makes it more apparent that there is a crazy meaning hidden behind the album, that maybe I don’t even want to know…

“The Clowns And The Escape” ended the album, which honestly may have been the most normal one I have heard while listening to this album. The crazy slides in the vocals along with the interesting chord changes and the tempo quickly speeding up makes this song the favorite for me. The entire album is like a story, but definitely not your everyday, ordinary story, so it’s a bit hard to comprehend. Musically, the songs are so interestingly different, and yet still sound phenomenal. It’s hard to find words to sum up the sound the band has, but if there’s a word that mixes insane and brilliant, that about sums it up.

For Fans Of: The Used, Monty Are I, Sound We Sleep

Overall Rating: 9.5/10

Recommended Tracks: Because You’re Lonely, The Ringleader, The Clowns And The Escape

Tracklist :

1. A Man Like Me
2. Let’s Just Forget About This
3. What Do We Have Here?
4. Because You’re Lonely (The Circus)
5. The Ringleader (Nonus the Hobo)
6. The Animals Tent (Decimus the Tramp)
7. The Performers Tent (Mortus The Bum)
8. Gullinkambi’s Return
9. The Sideshow Tent
10. The Clowns and the Escape