VAST - VAST (50 Albums Part 2)

The actual title of VAST's first major release is Visual Audio Sensory Theater, but I wanted to shorten the subject of the article.  

    I distinctly remember the first time I heard VAST.  I'm going to bring you back a bit.

    The year is 1998.  I was living in Miami, out of my element, and remember being extremely disenfranchised with music in a significant way that, at the time, I could not put my finger on.  A trip through Wikipedia's entry on 1998 in music reveals a hint of what it might have been.  Likely at the top of the list, this was that year (I often try to forget) that that Goo Goo Dolls album came out and solidified alterna-rock's place in the general overall suck that was pop music.  Additionally, check out these disturbing statistics on the good bands that broke up this year:

    * Dead Can Dance
    * Faith No More
    * Helmet
    * The Jesus & Mary Chain
    * Smoking Popes

    All great bands that I loved.  On top of the above, though unknown to me at the time, Machines of Loving Grace and many others were cracking and dissolving under the pressure of the Walt Disney company, which had purchased Mammoth records this year, effectively dooming the once-credible label.  One plus in my book, though:  Toad the Wet Sprocket broke up this year.

    Anyway, so back to Miami:  by 1997/1998, the relationship I had been in had become incredibly turbulent, and life in general had the same tepid feel as the radio.  I was 20/about to turn 20 and unhappy.

    As above, so below: I distinctly remember the first time I heard VAST.  Driving around the Metro-Dade area with my personal baggage in tow, in the midst of Gin Goo Toad the Wet Candlebox Dolls Jam hell and this comes out of the radio.  We'd been fighting, but we became speechless, and for the first time in my life I was inspired to call a radio station to find out about a song.  This song, and the album that would be released later, didn't just change my life - it blew through it like a tornado, pregnant with a chorus of desperate angels.  This music felt like the heaviest, most intense thing I'd ever heard.

    A year later, I was back in the Northeast and, unlike Miami which at that time had VAST in regular rotation, nothing like this was to be heard.  Some time later, the album (which I had already purchased in Florida) quietly found its way onto store shelves around Philadelphia.   I bought copies for several friends, and over the years would own and lose many of my own copies.  

    The rest of the album isn't as gripping as Touched, and the other tracks don't work on their own as well.  I liken this album to Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine - utterly original but somehow still unformed, memorable but unfinished.  Later, VAST would release a large amount of material, some of which is better than this, some much worse.  Nothing is like the first experience of this album beginning to end, though.  With light tones of industrial, interesting song structures, and a very pleasing "catch" - a tendency to move from minor to major keys without losing intensity.  This has the effect of a sort of desperate hope, confusion without the overdone adolescent angst.  Finally, some industrial-grunge for the more intelligent, mature and adult mind.  It was the perfect album for that time in my life, and it has stood the test of time.

    If that sounds a bit (or very much) pretentious, that's ok.  VAST is, indeed, a bit pretentious.  It's this album that helped me come to terms with my own pretense, to realize that it's ok to expect more from music.  Contrary to the typical hipster disavowal of emotional connection and depth so tragically present from otherwise decent indie rock, this album has the ability to reach anyone if you give it the chance.  Give it an hour, a darkened room, and maybe some visuals on the TV with the sound down, and chances are if you're honest with yourself, you'll come out just a little different.

    (Indidentally, given all of that, I still find myself surprised by the lack of attention this band has gotten over the last ten years.  While it's by no stretch "Emo," it seems the perfect second-tier alternative to those who are frustrated with the corporate packaged rebellion of the genre.)