This young quintet - made up of five school friends from rural Oxfordshire - are so fresh (they only formed last year) that you can practically smell the new paint on their rehearsal room walls and the wetness behind their ears.

Having released a debut single, ‘Living Forever Isn't Living At All', the VG lads quickly attracted not inconsiderable interest on the metalcore scene, not only locally but nationally, earning comparisons with the likes of Underoath and Parkway Drive along the way, and they've sought to follow on this success with this beefier debut EP.

And not a bad effort it is at all. The boys certainly know their way around their instruments, with the two guitarists working well together, and have produced a batch of well-written, well-constructed tunes, especially on the likes of opener ‘Wasting Away' and the intricate ‘Lost' and impressive closer ‘I Am The Earth'. There is an inevitable rawness and ropiness in some places, but the main problem is with the production - it is atrociously muddy, making the listener strain to make out the material, and especially the rhythm work, while Steve's vocals similarly suffer from being alternately too high in the mix and then buried in a quagmire of bassiness.

Nevertheless, despite having to work harder than with most releases to pass judgement upon it, it is worth sticking with, as this is a promising debut effort and, with a decent studio sound, bodes well for the five lads.

http://www.facebook.com/veragraceband
http://veragraceband.bandcamp.com/album/rotations