July 26th 2003

By Abbey Olson, SDAM Staff Writer
©Copyright 2008 SDAM.com/Abbey Olson

When the band I'm going to do a review for plays a genra I'm not terribly familiar with, I try to bring someone who is more knowledgeable than I am. This time it worked out really well, because my boyfriend, Dave, who is a "hardcore" metal fan from the east coast came with me to see VIII Fraud. I was sure that his years of listening to Rollins, Swan, Ministry, and the like would give me a good resource to bounce my impressions off of. Dave also went to school in Virginia and VIII Fraud is from Virginia Beach, so I though he'd be able to compare their performance to other metal bands he's seen on the east coast. As I was taking down notes after the first song, (yeah, I take notes. I'm a dork) Dave grabbed my notebook. "Good", I thought, "I think this band sounds pretty good, but we'll see what he says." When he returned my notes, I looked down to see what kind of words of wisdom he'd imparted; he'd written, "EAST COAST RULES, Virginia is for lovers". I realized then that perhaps I was on my own for this review. So here is what I thought, as a non-"hardcore" listener. I'm sure most of VIII Fraud's press begins with something about Jen Odis, the band's front-woman. But I was struck the most by how cohesive the band was. The rhythm was strong and the guitars meshed and clashed equally; in fact it was "melodic while still being metal" just as VIII Fraud has described themselves. Highlights included a song called "Skyline" and some sort of love-song that Jen sang to a severed head with a really bad haircut. Add in a couple of goblets of blood over the head, some S&M masks, and good lighting and VII Fraud's got themselves a really engaging live show. In Dave's defense, (and because I know he'll read this) he took my notes one more time and wrote, "She (Jen) was sweet offstage, but she's possessed onstage. Don't just write on her (though), the whole band is pretty damn good. The crowd obviously waited around to see them." I'll let him have the last word (for once) because I think he summed it up nicely. Thank you Dave. Learn more about VIII Fraud or read another review.