Simple Experience

Description

Simple Experience is the third album by the American alternative rock band Vector, independently released on the band’s own label gaga Records in 1989.

The Exit Records family (77s, Charlie Peacock, et al) has such a devoted cadre of followers that word of any project by one of them generally spreads quickly. What a delightful surprise then, when Steve Griffith handed me this cassette at Cornerstone ’89. It has been a long, dry spell since Please Stand By, so the band followed the example of Peacock’s West Coast Diaries series and the “do-it-yourself” approach.

The resulting cassette owes more to the tension and rawness of Mannequin Virtue than the somber and somewhat overproduced Please Stand By. These nine new tracks contain some of Steve Griffith’s best vocal preformances to date, as well as incisive lyrics.

Griffith’s bass playing is superb, and he’s backed by longtime associates Jimmy A on guitar and Aaron Smith (77s) on drums, with drum programming contribution from Mike Urbano of Bourgeois Tagg. [Bruce A. Brown, CCM, September 1989]

In the summer of sequels and comebacks, ‘Ghostbusters II’ opened to the tune of $85 million and that was considered a disappointment. The critics panned the movie because it wasn’t as good as the first one, ignoring the movie’s own merits. The summer hosted another return: Vector, after a four year hiatus with an independent project. The dilemma: do I judge the tape by its own merits or do I judge it by its predecessors?

‘Simple Experience’ picks up where ‘Please Stand By‘ left off, but correcting the synth problem – the sophomore release was smoother and more polished than their first, but the guitars were buried under the keyboards somewhere. The new tape (and soon CD) finds the keyboards altogether absent, with Jimmy Abegg’s capable guitar licks taking center stage. Steve Griffith’s vocals and bass lines are as welcome as ever and the lineup is rounded out with Bourgeois Tagg’s Michael Urbano programming drum sounds and 77’s drummer Aaron Smith’s plays on two tracks.

Compared to Vector’s inaugural ‘Mannequin Virtue‘, the band has lost some of its urgency and quirky dance feel – where is the magic that wrought «Hunger and the Thirst» or «Running From the Light»? It’s been traded for softer productions values. With slower, more introspective songs, however, it seems a fair trade-off. «Sometimes» and «Simple Experience» are great. It’s just that Vector should have taken the dance clubs by storm, and the opening number, «I Wanna Know», comes within a hair’s breadth of proving that again.

So, although it falls slightly short of the legend, ‘Simple Experience’ is still better than some of the regular drek we’ve been getting from lesser bands. Find it.

(You can find Vector’s ‘Simple Experience’ at your local Chnstian music store with the Spring Arbor’s magic order numbers for cassette: 000-137-7892 and for CD: 000-137-7701.) [Chris Well, Harvest Rock Syndicate, Issue 3, 1989 (Volume 4)]

A Califomian band with plenty of street cred – Charlie Peacock once fronted them – but nothing prepared us for this new album which gives off more sparks than a dozen predictable AOR items. With a droning ‘indie’ sound the group manage to incorporate a certain ‘Englishness’ into their sound without ever stumbling into pastiche. A turbulent opener «I Want To Know» asks God what he can possibly see in wretches like us over a pulsating rhythm track. «Be Undone» has vocalist Steve Griffith absolutely tearing at his soul on an eery ballad while the title track closer has a touch of U2-style Celtic fire. Throughout ringing guitar chords give the album the same eery quality so effective on Choir albums. Intelligent lyrics from producer Griffith manage to be explicit yet uncliched. A superb rock album. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, July 1990]

CD-tracklist:

01. I Want To Know – 4:00
02. Fine Line – 4:04
03. Be Undone – 6:29
04. Where Are You Now – 4:46
05. I Burn Myself Away – 3:52
06. I Wait For You – 5:17
07. Have Mercy – 4:20
08. Sometimes – 5:03
09. Simple Experience – 6:28

Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by gaga Records.

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