
Venetic: Darkness, Sweetness & Light
By Peter Dent
Venetic are a Wellington garage rock quartet led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Wayne Stuart McCallum. The 13 original songs on this CD feature acoustic 6- and 12-string guitars almost exclusively, along with bass and drums. Second guitarist Johann Croton also supplies some vocals and bassist Joey Esposito also plays harmonica. The group formed in 2002 and in the same year recorded this debut. The production and engineering duties were all covered by McCallum at Kiwi Street Studios, obviously a home recording. Unfortunately the quality is marginal and some of the performances are distorted or muffled. On a brighter note, some of the lyrics are absolutely stunning. Ruled With Fear is the very touching story of child abuse written in first person. Several other lyrics deal with relationship breakups and you've got to dig an album that features a beer crate used as a percussion instrument! Fun.
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