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spotlight! a new Vice for an old Squad
By Megan Carneal
mcarneal@mscd.edu

Vice Squad Defiant (SOS Records, 2006)

Nostalgia is like methadone. For the addict, it suffices when the real vice is unavailable, but it will never come close to the real thing.

Defiant is the latest release from original punk rockers Vice Squad. The band dates back to 1978 with the formation of the group, led by possibly the most attractive female rocker in history, Beki Bondage. Since then they have put out four EPs and nine full-length albums, Defiant being the tenth. With a career spanning two decades, some changes in sound and style are to be expected.

Bondage, whose voice was once an incredibly seductive mix of a schoolgirl pout and British aloofness, is now, as the title suggests, defiant. Maybe it was years of drug abuse, maybe it is just age, but her crystal-clear vibratos have been traded for something sounding like a strung-out Joan Jett. The painfully obvious change in vocals is hard to get over, especially for the die-hard fans, but with the more contemporary style of the band the ironically innocent vocals of the old Bondage would have been grossly out of place on Defiant.

Vice Squad has always had a distinct pop sensibility, whether it was for the sheer catchiness of their songs or the then-futuristic but now-dated overuse of a synthesizer during their run in the ’80s. Defiant keeps that quality, especially in tracks such as “Don’t let the Bastards Grind You Down” and the title track, with call-and-response guitars in the latter and bubble-gum melodies in the former. It seems as if the only thing the band has carried with them over the years is the ability to make their tracks radio-friendly.

Defiant is full of the nostalgic warm-and-fuzzies, but should not, under any circumstances, be used as an introduction to Vice Squad. As any decent drugged-out degenerate would say, start with the hard stuff, and once a meaningful addiction has been achieved with the Vice, try Defiant.