Acid Reign – Violens Acid Reign – Violens (Free Download)

When my younger brother wanted a keyboard for Christmas, rather than getting him something expensive he’d disregard in a few days, my parents opted for this tacky little red keyboard, complete with weird drum beats and Celine Deon tracks prerecorded in its memory.

When we wanted to pretend we were good at playing the keyboard, all we had to do was hit one of the memory buttons, and BAM! We were instant rock starts. Violens personifies the young musicians my brother and I dreamed of becoming.

Winter Mixtape is all over the place. Though it’s almost entirely an 80’s flashback, it still has some acoustic rock strewn throughout the album’s duration. Warm Collision (feat. Caroline Polachek of Chairlift) is entirely 80’s oriented, but surprisingly isn’t tacky. The entire album is full of surprises and features loads of artists that collaborated with the Violens.  That being said, they stick to their techno, 80’s vibe. At times, the 80’s style (sorry for the generalization) is too much to handle, but the group is something fresh and funky in this day and age.

They give off the vibe that their comfortable with their sound, and it’s refreshing to hear. On their website www.violens.net, the album Winter Mixtape is free to download, as well as their new single Acid Reign. Overall, I give Winter Mixtape a 6.3.