Album Review: The Vanity Affair - Love You More EP

Over the last year or so the so-called 'scene' has changed, bands singing about heartbreak and being alone has been replaced by those who just want to party and have fun. The Vanity Affair is one of those bands.

Despite the title of their EP 'Love You More' suggesting the band are like the aforementioned, this four-piece from St. Louis, Missouri have produced 5 catchy fun-filled pop-punk songs.

'Never Let You Go' brings the EP to life from the start, with its standard pop-punk tempo and lyrics directed at a girl. The track has a good vibe from the start, however it does sound a bit too much like Forever The Sickest Kids, but this does lose credibility to the track.

'Party Girl' continues the feeling good vibe with its memorable chorus of 'you make me want to p-a-r-t-y'. The slow breakdown and well-crafted structure makes it one of the more favourable tracks on the EP.

'The Score' sees the band introducing electronic elements and handclaps into play. The song is somewhat stripped down and atmospheric, with little use of guitar as synthesizers take over. It is one of the poppiest songs on the EP and its lyrical content adds to this with the positive line of 'let's dance tonight, come on come one, let’s make this right'.

The guitars surge back in on 'Top of the World', a straight up pop-rock song with a distinctive riff and harmless, honest lyrics. The EP ends with the band using electronic elements again and vocoder effect vocals on 'Take It Slow' but the band soon begin to rock out until they momentarily slow things down and then the pay off sees the band blending a variety of vocal harmonies and group vocals.

On the whole 'Love You More' is a good EP from a band with potential. However the downfall is that there are too many bands that are doing what The Vanity Affair are doing, and that is writing catchy, positive pop-punk songs. It's kind of disappointing that a band like The Vanity Affair will probably get lost in a mass crowd of bands that want to be next Fall Out Boy or All Time Low, as they have strong songs and have an enjoyable brand of music which plain, simple and harmless.

4/5

More Information about The Vanity Affair can be found on their MySpace.

Sean Reid