Tracklist:
01 – Baby G
02 – Baby G (Acoustic Version)
03 – Lady (Hear Me Tonight) – Modjo Cover 
04 – Cooking Potatoes

Free Download here.

The foursome got together back in 2006. Andrea Mastropietro (vocals, guitar), Federico Sereni (bass, vocals), Francesco Marchi (vocals, guitar) and Marco Biagiotti (drums, vocals) took some time to gig around, playing everywhere from bars to the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool for 2008′s International Pop Overthrow. The band’s 2009 debut, Keep Clear, set a tone the band’s largely kept to since. Its 2009 EP, Sofa Sessions, sojourned into bedroom pop—or in this case, sofa pop—with acoustic strumming and a bare-bones approach. The coughs and count-offs that intro some tracks give it an intimate feel, like it was recorded in a living room.

The band’s latest, and very solid, effort, Fine For Now, arrived in February on their home label Foolica. Its musicianship is just where it should be after playing a hundred shows in the group’s native Italy alone, and countless others abroad. Frontman Mastropietro serves sleepy pop verses and sing-along choruses amidst a barrage of indie sounds of Vampire Weekend caliber. The record was mixed by Steven Orchard, who’s worked with megastars like U2, Iggy Pop and Paul McCartney, so you know the recording is as smooth as gelato. As an example, check out a video for the song “It’s All Really Mad,” taken off the LP, below.

By Alex Eriksen

CMJ

What do you hope listeners will get from your music?

Honestly we hope people grow fond of our songs and, of course, with us. That’s a big gratification for a musician and is pure energy too. A song is a product of a feeling and to enjoy a song is feeling with the artist. When it happens by listening to a record you’ve shared something without knowing. When it happens live you can see it and it’s amazing. You can feel the sharing!

What’s the best gig you ever played?

We played a lot of gigs in the past two years and we really can’t choose one in particular so we’ll choose two! The first was in a small but very famous venue, The Cavern Club in Liverpool. We think that it doesn’t need any introduction. The Beatles, The Who and many others great bands played there, being on the same stage it was very exciting!
The second was the Italia Wave Love Festival (Ok Go, Editors, Groove Armada, Underworld): a very big stage, a lot of people and great emotions. Small venues and big festivals are two sides of the same coin and we love both!

What’s your prediction for the next big advancement in how we find/listen to/share music?

Unfortunately, we think that there will be more and more digital music. In the future we can listen to a compilation or a record directly in streaming, the physical support will become rare. This is not so good for the musicians and for all the people who still love play vinyl or a compact disc in their stereos, but this is the future, and we’re ready.

What’s your favorite way/tool/site for you to interact with your fans in the digital age? Do you recommend anything to other artists?

The digital age is always changing. There was MySpace, now Facebook is predominate. To promote yourself, Sonicbids is great. Anyway to interact with your fans, Facebook is. But it is all in a limited way. Maybe the first-born of the digital age, the personal site (by the way, our site is www.thevickers.eu) is the full tool you can use if integrated with a blog, pictures, apps, etc. But when you’re not well known you need “social networking”. Let us quote a Young song, “I know I’m more than just a number, and I stand before you, or else we just don’t see the other. Computer age, computer age. Computer age.”

What’s your next big gig coming up? When/Where?

We’ll play two shows in Paris on September 28 and 29. It will be our first time in France. We’re sure it’s going to be an amazing experience. If you’ll be around, come join us!

Check out more on The Vickers here.

by Marya McLaughlin

Sonicbids

(Available now through Foolica/Flake Records)

(7.5/10)

Gary Moyes

Loud Horizon

Across the rest of the album, there are partially recognisable riffs a plenty as the Vickers give the nod to all sorts of indie guitar types, including Vampire Weekend, Mercury Rev, and yes, even the Libertines. As far as originality goes, The Vickers might not win very many prizes but for enthusiasm, ability and actual talent, they probably deserve more of a hearing from our radio and media than they’ve had and in a less crowded music scene they’d probably get one.

www.tastyfanzine.org.uk

The Cantanovanta Vol 2 is out! It’s a compilation of the best(?) 90s songs made by the best italian indie bands. The Vickers are in with “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)”  by Modjo!

Stream the whole thing on XL Repubblica.

Download it here.

Fine For Now is out today in Japan!! This special edition by Flake Records contains a bonus track (Time Out). The Album was released in Italy on February 2011, eleven songs that range from the recent british rock and the american independent rock tradition, all collected with consistency and an inspired songwriting. The eleven tracks have been mixed by Steven Orchard (Paul McCartney, Pulp, U2, Iggy Pop) and mastered by Jon Astley (The Who, Stereophonics, Paul McCartney). The album opens with They Need To Dance, an indie/dance rhythmic drunky song, wich invites to move and sing. Baby G, the first single shows the typical sound of the band and adds new sensations with biting riffs and catchy tunes. We find these ingredients in other songs too, “You Think I’m Playing”, “Chem Dream”, “It’s All Really Mad”. The album gets darker and less reassuring, as the title suggests and here comes the most genuine british indie rock, These Things Come To An End, William, A Big Decision, that in the middle nineties spleen, recount the precariousness that we live in, the social masks and coldness, the relationship between people. In the final, the funny ironic and sarcastic David Blame, and the ethereal A Game For You To Play close the Lp in a bitter, psychedelic way.

Fine For Now.

Japanese Bonus Track
 

SOUNDS LIKE? Weirdo and neato. It’s brit-pop gone brat-pop with a whole load of Kinks singles and 1.17% of The Jam albums. The really brilliant thing about this set is how it manages to be ultra crisp and still stylishly smeared in real pop filth. Really, this is the kind of ‘pop’ produced by people without a scruple or a starry eye to their name, the innocence is gone, but the imagination remains. So, if big screens, snagged up riffs and overworked tambourines light your fires, get onto “Fine For Now”.

IS IT ANY GOOD? Yes.
WHERE IS IT? www.foolica.com

www.unpeeled.net

The Vickers on Burning World, download the Pod Fodder Volume One Hundred And Twenty Three with “They Need To Dance” taken from the album Fine For Now.

They don’t seem like nice kids judging by the cover of their sophomore LP Fine For Now, but The Vickers’ sound is warm as a sunny Tuesday mornin.

They’re also not a guy/girl  duo, nor are they as British as those underpants. The Vickers is a dude quartet living in Florence, where it’s just about impossible to be dark and angry, because this is your view. No reverb here — for once — just nice Brit-poppy jangles with shades of Two Door Cinema Club,Vampire Weekend, and a Bob Dylan vocal drawl. Some of the  commenting Italian public is POed about the familiarity of it all, but if you lobotomize that hipster side of your brain for 3.5 minutes,  you’d tap your feet to the fun, solid indie rock. Even the critics can’t help but listen to the whole thing. At the very least, it’s a dope album cover.

Check out three tracks from Fine for Now,  stream the whole thing, and join the heated convo.

Mtv Iggy