Victor Bravo is made up by two guys from Maine who escaped out of the cold badlands for the relative warmth and laid-back ease of New York City. They burst out on the crest of furious, pumping, garage-punk rock that people compare to Mudhoney, Husker Du, and the Ramones. Born in the same town, in the same hospital, in the same week, at times their performances make it seem like they're reading each other's minds.
Dan pounds the drums in a unique and sometimes terrifying way – broken sticks, cymbals, heads, shells, stands, bloodied hands, and other musicians standing aghast are the norm. Collin fires up blazing, dense, distorted guitar work and sings his guts out until people are shaking. Together, their songs are klaxon-blast warnings about everything that looms up to destroy you when you're not alert: parents, partners, politicos, and all the various forces of darkness.
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Much like Mudhoney's classic ode to diseased behavior, "Touch Me I'm Sick," Victor Bravo produce nauseating noise that owes as much to early punk as it does 90's grunge. "Dallas" takes twangy guitar and breaks it into sludgy chords that would have pleased grunge-era Subpop, and "Toxic Tornado" packs snarled vocals into a song laced with angst. Victor Bravo don't stop there though: "Binge" is an angular assault worthy of Gang of Four, and the mid-tempo "Sarbanes-Oxley" dances around lyrics dealing with political scandal and fraud. NYC needs Victor Bravo. The city that nurtured the likes of Iggy Pop, the Dead Boys and even GG Allin should continue the legacy of sick, depraved rock n' roll; thankfully, there is.
- Bill Dvorak, The Deli Magazine, Winter 2007
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Let’s see now, raw? Yes. Dirty? Uh huh. Fun? check! Yep, Victor Bravo has it all... VB does what all good Rock n’ Roll does- it makes you want to drink beer, jump around and have fun.
The songs from the EP on the site are great. The first song, "Dallas", starts soft and then kicks into a rollicking crusher with a bit of a funky beat. Simple, yet totally effective. The second song, "Binge" (my personal favorite), starts off reminding me a bit of the Replacements, then hooks a left turn into Husker Du territory before I know what to do with myself. The third song, "Sarbanes-Oxley" (named after the corporate accounting reform bill), is kind of a mid-tempo romp through the land of Enron, politics and fraud...
There are a million good bands out there, but Victor Bravo is great. Write it down somewhere -- on a cigarette box or HoHo wrapper if ya have to -- these guys are going to be huge.
- Rob Green, C60Crew, 6/10/07
http://c60crew.blogspot.com/2007/06/victor-bravoshut-out-sky.html
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This explosive four-song EP shreds ahead with a sound harkening straight back to the flannel-waisted glory days of "college rock," and refreshingly so. In the midst of a scene still heavily reliant on the eighties, it’s about time someone pried a few nails off the old grunge coffin, which is exactly what Victor Bravo manages to do with balls and originality. Opening song "Dallas" could easily be mistaken for an outtake from Mudhoney’s quitessential Superfuzz Bigmuff, all the way down to the gritty Mark Arm-like falsetto, and the band makes no bones about its influences. Mudhoney is indeed given thanks on the inlay, along with Juliana Hatfield, L7, Superchunk, Love Battery - a veritable pantheon of indie greatness. The middle two songs sever this anchor in favor of some fully inventive and more up-to-date rockin’, followed by another Mudhoney-esque bombshell to round out the set. Victor Bravo may well be the grunge fetishist’s messiah, and this audacious cut, short but sweet, is well worth any good rock fan’s attention.
- Steve Gunn, Online Rock, 4/23/07
http://www.onlinerock.com/CDreview/review_victorbravo.shtml
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The indie-punk trio Victor Bravo have released their debut EP, with a stunning four track set list... a slow building cresendo of bouncing guitars and a murderous drums beats, that will have you up and down, boucing across the dance floor... For a band that has only been together since last year, this is a great DIY release that fans of garagey-punk rock you can dance to.
- Matt G, Hussieskunk, 2007
http://www.hussieskunk.com/reviews/music/victorbravo-shutoutthesky.htm
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[A]n instant favorite... Shut Out the Sky is a four-song, sixteen-minute slice of snarling punk plucked straight from Iggy Pop or Husker Du’s back catalog... with [Binge's] choppy bursts of guitars and Frendz’s manic posturing, the track is nothing short of dynamic, seamlessly mixing catchy refrains with aggressive energy... Rounding things out is "Toxic Tornado," a wailing, declarative rocker reminiscent of the Ramones. Tightly executed and brimming with frantic exuberance... If this is what they can do with a four-track EP, a full-length album is sure to be absolutely explosive.
- Melanie Love, The Daily Vault, 3/23/07
http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=4769
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New York City’s rock renaissance continues with the advent of Victor Bravo, a basic rock power trio with a calling card EP, Shut Out the Sky. Drawing on the punk-fueled energy of classic underground acts like Hüsker Dü and the 60s garage rock tradition, the Bravos spit out four loogies of melodic, aggressive rock/pop, highlighted by "Binge" and "Dallas"...
- Michael Toland, High Bias, 3/22/07
http://community.livejournal.com/highbias/215436.html
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Victor Bravo is a stripped-down garage rock juggernaut of Collin Frendz on fuzzy guitar and echoey howl-at-the-moon vocals and Dan Collins on twitchy drums... terrific, swaggering snot-nosed anthems in the tradition of rural pissed-off teens from 1966 on. "Binge" is an irresistibly Dionysian release, though "Sarbanes-Oxley" (named for the 2002 corporate accounting reform act) is hardly a typical lowbrow theme.
- Kim Cooper, Lost in the Grooves, 2/8/07
www.lostinthegrooves.com/victorbravo
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