Plumbiferous Media

NYC band Versus’s newest album, On the Ones and Threes, was released this past Tues­day. A great new addi­tion to Versus’s exten­sive list of albums, sin­gles, EPs, and com­pi­la­tions, On the Ones and Threes is Ver­sus once again at the top of its game, fol­low­ing its long leave of absence. Ver­sus is quite clearly still heav­ily entrenched in the ‘90s, but given the excel­lence of the album, that’s cer­tainly not a bad thing.

Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups share vocals on On the Ones and Threes, with a deliv­ery that is calmly fluid, alter­nately flow­ing along­side the superb instru­men­tals and pro­vid­ing them with an intrigu­ing con­trast. Both Baluyut and Toups are excel­lent alone, but the height of the album’s instru­men­tals is in the vocal har­monies cre­ated by the two together. On tracks like “Nu Skin,” this is akin to an addi­tional instru­ment. Whether the vocals act in that way, sim­ply as accom­pa­ni­ment, or in the front-line role that best does them jus­tice, they are always fur­ther devel­op­ing an already rich musi­cal landscape.

While at first many of On the Ones and Threes’ lyrics seem to make lit­tle sense, on a close lis­ten­ing, it becomes obvi­ous that Ver­sus has done a com­mend­able job at both incor­po­rat­ing com­plex imagery into the lyrics and mak­ing those images fit the music seam­lessly. Whether the band’s describ­ing soli­tude as a vac­uum or singing “Seven long years / I’ve been left for dead” on “Cicada,” it quite sim­ply works. On the Ones and Threes rarely falls into lyri­cal traps such as over-repetition or un-originality - even when it repeats, it’s done cre­atively enough not to bore.

On the Ones and Threes is, judged solely on instru­men­tals, one of the most inge­nu­itive albums recently released. Begin­ning with the excel­lent blend­ing of gui­tar and other strings on the first track, fol­lowed with the sur­pris­ing, but per­fectly fit­ting, pro­longed solo-instrumental sec­tion of “Nu Skin,” and last­ing through the min­gling moods of the album’s final track, “The Ones and Threes,” the album’s instru­men­tals remain engross­ing, extremely ener­getic, and per­fectly designed. Ver­sus moves through sec­tions with expert tim­ing to per­fectly engage the lis­tener, and On the Ones and Threes’s mix­ture of indie, alt, and (good) prog styles, while not exactly unique any­more, is cer­tainly refresh­ing to hear done so well.

To top it all off, On the Ones and Threes con­nects its var­i­ous ele­ments beau­ti­fully. The instru­men­tals of “Into Blue,” are per­fectly crafted to sup­port Fontaine Toups’s espe­cially melodic vocals, and the same goes for Richard Baluyut’s more ener­getic “Sat­ur­day Saints.” And of course, the com­bi­na­tion of both vocal­ists is sim­ply on another level. The octaves and har­monies of “Invin­ci­ble Hero” are both inter­est­ing and excel­lent, and when every­thing comes together per­fectly, like on “Pink Val­halla,” the results are staggering.

After a ten year hia­tus, it’s impres­sive that Ver­sus has put out an album at all. That it’s an album as good as On the Ones and Threes is excel­lent. On the Ones and Threes shows the band in top form - as cre­ative as ever, with the extra devel­op­ment of ideas and skill that gap has allowed. All in all, Ver­sus has cre­ated an out­stand­ing album, com­bin­ing a num­ber of well-crafted ele­ments into a mas­ter­fully built whole.

This post is tagged 80-89, Versus