Release Date: April 3, 2020
Genre: Post-Rock, Alternative Rock
Label: Locust Hail
The Vancouver-based three-piece Red Vienna returns to the spotlight with a two-track EP, Tohmet. The EP is a grim and haunting follow-up to their 2015 full-length album, The Book of Hours. Red Vienna was formed in 2010 by drummer Robbie Zgaljic (Sparkmarker, Black Halos), bassist/vocalist Jahmeel Russell (ACTORS), while they’re joined by guitarist, Devin Boquist. Tohmet was produced by Jahmeel’s ACTORS bandmate, Jason Corbett at his Vancouver studio, Jacknife Sound.
The album features two alternative rock/post-punk tracks “Evelyn” and the title track, “Tomhet.” The pair of tracks pick up right where the band’s previous album, The Book of Hours, left off. The first track on the effort, “Evelyn,” was inspired by the photograph captured by Robert Wiles titled “The Most Beautiful Suicide.” While the image has been iconic for years, it’s quite the morbid and subtle image of a 23-year-old woman, Evelyn McHale, laying on the roof of a United Nations Limousine, taken on May 1, 1947, four minutes after she jumped to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. Whereas the title track, “Tohmet,” is a song covering similar topics of depression and hopelessness.
Tohmet beautifully captures various rock sub-genres in collective elements ranging from post-rock, alt. rock, shoegaze, and even in a little bit of punk. Although Tohmet is of a darker subject matter, there are still some positives you can be left with after listening. The album is for fans of bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Interpol, Killing Joke, and Failure, to name a few, and these band’s influence shines through brightly on both of the tracks, “Evelyn” and “Tohmet.”
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