Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
With plenty of dizzyingly brilliant guitar interplay up front, tight, muscular drumming in the back, and Matthew Flegel’s commanding vocals sitting on top of it all, Viet Cong evokes a unique mixture of Television, Deerhoof and the Velvet Underground. Flegel’s melodies and dense lyrics are somehow simultaneously catchy and morose, while the instrumentation flirts with melody through a haze of noise. These contradictions are surely a key contributor to the massive amount of critical acclaim the band received for their self-titled debut album.