Spiked

Hailing from Manchester, England, Venice 13 is hoping to carve their own little niche in electronic music. Pulling from metal, hip-hop, and electronic genres, they throw in their live performance energy to produce an aggressive form of electronica on their debut album, Spiked - a prime example of where the age-old adage "don't judge a book by it's cover" holds true.

The opening track, "Juice" reveals Venice 13 have hit their mark. However, uninspiring lyrics hurt the song more then help it. "Say juice, juice...1 2 1 2" gets a little old after a few times. It seems as the lyrics were primarily meant for pumping up a crowd during live performances, and this is true for other tracks on Spiked.

"Oxygen" slows the tempo down a bit, but it picks the interest level up a lot. Venice 13 change styles enough throughout Spiked to keep the interest level up, and the album gets better as it goes on. Other notable tracks include "Funky Dog," "Kooki Itch," and the best of the album "Fire In The Hole."

The weakest part of Spiked is the lyrics, and coincidentally "Fire In The Hole" is instrumental. Also, the 15 tracks on Spiked would be better flipped around, even though "Juice" is slated to be a single, it's not as impressive as "Fire In The Hole." Venice 13 demonstrate their talent in producing raw electronic music that would fit right in an industrial oriented dance club, but would be even better live. Unfortunately, the lyrics/vocals make Spiked an average album to listen to, but a good debut. Spiked is for the listener that likes excellent instrumentalism and electronica with an edge.