I am thrilled to announce that VIA VENGEANCE has joined the Starbird Booking roster!!

Arizona-based Via Vengeance is a one man band – but not your typical one man band. No. There is no makeshift suitcase kick drum, there are no loop pedals; it’s just a man, his drums and his guitar. The days of clangy knee cymbals have made way for hard melodic guitar chords. Slow irrevocable lyrics and precision drumming. This is sludgy stoner rock fueled by pain, anger and amplified electricity.

Having played with such bands as Mastodon, Pelican, Jesu, Melt Banana and Black Cobra in addition to a national tour this past Spring with A Storm of Light, this September will see Via Vengeance venturing out on a 2 week West coast tour. He will be showcasing new songs from his forthcoming sophomore album entitled Dead In the Snow, which features album art and a musical appearance by Josh Graham (ex-Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Battle of Mice).

“Musically, the album is reminiscent of early Godflesh, with Ocell’s guttural growl and crushing riffs laid over bare-bones drumming.”stonerrock.com

“The chromatic-scaled Black Sabbath-y riffs are simple, stripped down and covered in barbed wire.” SLUG Magazine

“The rhythms are snappy and solid, with seamless, simple timing changes that often lead into even simpler guitar interludes, but show attention to composition nonetheless. This is raw, hard stuff, oozing with slow, booming backbeats, and bludgeoned by stoner rock power chords.” - Phoenix New Times

“….feeds fat, gritty guitar sounds through effects pedals and Sunn amps with one hand while drumming with the other hand and stomping out steady, stalking rhythms with his feet. It’s stoner doom-metal with the structural ambitions of prog-metal bands such as Isis and the raw, analog ambiance of garage-punk terrorists Drunk With Guns.” - New Times

Visual idea of VV performance: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1518803676672070467#

Aptly demonstrating the grinding simplicity of quality metal, Ocell manned the drum kit, riffed the guitar and bellowed menacingly into the mic. Via Vengeance rocked …

Click Here for the full article on the New Times website.

As to the CD itself, well, before launching into that discussion, it’s important to have a touch of background information about this band. This band is, in fact, one person, with two instruments: drums, and guitar. Live, this is nothing short of highly entertaining, because while most people can’t manage the coordination to play just drums, much less drums and guitar simultaneously. When you describe it to someone, they’re immediately baffled. It seems impossible. But Shane of Via Vengeance seems to manage it just fine. Of course, when one person is playing two instruments at the same time, you can’t expect Meshuggah. The individual parts are all fairly simple. But what can you expect instead?

In the case of Via Vengeance, you can expect a combination of two styles really. The guitar riffing most often hails back to some of the nu-metal style riffing made popular in the 90’s, but more along the lines of Deftones than Limp Bizkit. The sound, however, is much sludgier and darker, and really seems more born of the post-metal movement. In particular, the vocal style mixed with the rest at times conjures Isis for me, not a shabby comparison. Obviously, a single man is not able to execute as effectively as a full band of five people, but the execution is not 4/5 times worse either. Where Via Vengeance differs from a typical post-metal band though is that while it’s heavy and moody, it’s not full of 8 minute epics. In fact, the longest song still clocks in at under six minutes. Perhaps the music is a little bit faster, but for the most part, the difference seems to come from a lack of over-repetition. Most post-metal CDs are tiring to listen to, both from the heaviness and the repetition, and while Dieography is not totally immune to that, the compression of 10 songs into a mere 37 minutes means that you can get through this CD and not be exhausted beyond belief.

Despite the variety inherent in the large number of tracks on the CD, the end result is not as prolific as it could be. The riffs in each song are different, but not so completely different that the CD doesn’t begin to feel a bit same-y towards the end. Like most post-metal CDs, it’s entirely possible to stop paying attention and lose track of what rack you’re listening to. The uniformity of sound is quite strong in the CD. In addition, the instruments were recorded live for the CD. While that is entirely respectable, as artists who can’t play their own music live are quite a disappointment, at the same time it’s a bit of a disappointment in its own right because you have to wonder what Shane could do compositionally if he weren’t limited by his lack of band mates.

Although the live show overpowers the CD (which it ought to for any good, heavy band, especially a one-man band), the CD holds its own weight quite effectively in the end.

Thursday, May 07, 2009
new review of dieography from az am radio station

Saturday, February 07, 2009
recent review from The Evil Inquisition [Music Webzine]

Click Here for the full article on phoenixnewtimes.com

Sunday, May 18, 2008
cd review from new times

Via Vengeance
Dieography
Street: 2007
Via Vengeance = Neurosis + Clutch + [(Phil Collins + guitar) - pop sap]

With all the hype surrounding two-piece bands over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to legitimize the concept of a one-man band. That someone is the Valley’s own Shane Ocell, the lone member of Via Vengeance, and from the sound of his debut album, Dieography, he has succeeded. Ocell simultaneously handles vocal, guitar and drum duties in Via Vengeance, which might amount to nothing more than a slightly interesting novelty act if he didn’t also have a knack for writing killer doom metal riffs and soul-baring lyrics. “Only Strong Survive” is an ode to Ocell’s father, whose obituary is included in early pressings of the CD. Other songs, such as “Vile Lie,” “Bad Treat” and the album’s high point, “Burned,” are emotional outbursts of anger and pain. Musically, the album is reminiscent of early Godflesh, with Ocell’s guttural growl and crushing riffs laid over bare-bones drumming. Veteran producer Matt Bayles (Pearl Jam, Isis, Mastodon) does an excellent job of capturing the raw brutality of Ocell’s live performances. On some songs, the drum mics even pick up Ocell’s guitar strumming, which not only adds to the album’s authenticity, but also provides another layer of depth to the overall soundscape. Dieography is one of the more impressive Valley debuts in recent memory and might very well catapult Via Vengeance into a much larger spotlight.

review from stonerrock.com
Via Vengeance – Dieography
Reviewed by Mike R. Meyer (courtesy of College Times)
Release date: October 12, 2007