It never seemed intentional, but the VSS were a gleaming beacon of hope to the dyed black haired masses, the white belters, the spock rockers, and any restless hipster kid who felt out of place in the cartoon uniformity of punk music or the lazy slack predictability of indie rock. Fronted by Sonny Kay—who, along with MacKaye and Biafra, was a culture changing lead singer whose influence wasn’t just limited to the stage, his label (GSL) was a longtime frontrunner of the independent scene before shutting down last year—the band took a page from the Gravity Records (a label they once were a part of in their previous incarnation, Angel Hair) playbook and kept things short, sweet, and loud in their brief run.

Their masterwork was Nervous Circuits, released a decade ago, and now (thankfully) getting the reissue treatment via Hydra Head. The record captured the band at what they did best, the unsettling blasts of goth keyboard heroics, the raw guitar tones, Kay’s desperate howls, and the thumping drums of Dave Clifford (a former Portland who has played in Pleasure Forever—that’s a good thing—and written for WW—that’s a bad thing). On the few tours that followed Nervous Circuits it seemed that the VSS were changing the face, and dress, of modern punk music, as their crowds, no matter how big or small, were being seduced by the band’s dark sound and style. Hell, I was one of them. After seeing the band I desperately wanted to crawl onstage and be one of them in the worst possible way. It was punk’s rebellion repackaged for the kids who couldn’t really give a fuck.

After they unplugged the light show and packed away the keyboards for good, you could hear the VSS in everyone from Ink and Dagger, to the Locust, and—god, I am so sorry to even write this—even less worthy bands such as AFI or Atreyu. But don’t blame them for that, the VSS’ contribution to the underground landscape is far more important than some clowns dressed in black with a soft smear of their mom’s eyeliner running down their faces.

MP3:
The VSS - In Miniature

PURCHASE:
Nervous Circuits, the special reissue version with a bonus CD.

Thanks to Rubin Recommends for the help.