Virgins is one part gentleman poet Silly Rob Childish. and one part live wire guitarist Maxwell Lewis?. And they are making my Microsoft Word grammar check go crazy. But I digress. Rob Gray and Max Golding have been making music under various forms for awhile now, but they came together last year as Virgins, playing shows, jamming in studios and just plain blowing heads in Santa Barbara.

Rob Gray is a poet through and through and words explode explicitly and are exquisitely annunciated (Sometimes told with a drunken swagger). Images of history and our culture flicker out and about his mouth and you’ll find yourself holding your breath to listen to every word. And these words are given ten shots of cocaine by Max Golding’s insane fingers. It is as if someone knocked over a telephone pole and the poetry electrocuted your insides and especially your brain.

“Champagne And Snow” is perhaps their flagship song; I’ve seen it performed twice, heard it on three albums and it is different every time. Like old Jazz artists they tend to play around with the structures making for some fascinating takes on the same song. One thing that carries through in every version of this song is the electricity and fury put into it. Gray is practically spitting these images of orgiastic decadence (a reflection of Isla Vista perhaps?), failed dreams, utmost disappointment and a killer Fall Out Boy reference. Golding’s fingers fly like a wild night on a Las Vegas strip à la Fear And Loathing…

“How I Am” is one of the best examples of Gray’s ability as a spoken word poet and this time around Golding backs it up with a fitting level of tension. It’s visceral seeing it live, but it still hits you even in the recording.

Virgins are doing some of the most original music out there today. If you even think for a second that it comes with a level of pretentiousness, once you listen you’ll understand that they are coming from a very human place. It’s the part in us all that longs to try and encapsulate all our pain and joy into words and music. Virgins are making headway into that territory quite gloriously, well as glorious as the human experience can be.

Mp3s:
Virgins-”Champagne And Snow,” the Demo Two version
Virgins-”How I Am”

Links:
Virgins on myspace
Minus The Masses Records, get all their albums for free here!
Silly Rob Childish. on myspace
Maxwell Lewis? on myspace