庸俗救星 Vulgar Savior's "The Vulgar Weekly: Countdown to the End of the World"
defiant rock and soft indie pop wrapped in a single package, with a soulful kick
When I first arrived in Taipei, my primary method of finding new bands to listen to was going to live shows. Loading up the websites of all the venues I knew in the city, seeing what was on that night, and selecting a show to go to at random was a ritual that alleviated two anxieties at once: (1) the anxiety of not knowing how to approach the very vague task I had set out on1, and (2) the anxiety of feeling cooped up in my apartment, nervous to go out and interact with people in a language I didn’t speak very well.
Vulgar savior (庸俗球星) was one of the first bands I learned about this way. The motivation on that particular day happened to be more on the side of anxiety number 2 – I had just moved into my apartment and was still walking around on tiptoes, worried about bothering my new roommates – so I chose a concert that was happening at a venue that I hadn’t been to before (but had wanted to check out) and bought a ticket at the door, equipped with only the name of the band as prior knowledge.
It was a fascinating concert to go in blind to – for the first 20 minutes of the show, I couldn’t really put my finger on what genre the band was supposed to be. They came out the gate with some synth-peppered alt-pop songs, then shifted into a bouncy feel-good number with a heavy soul influence, and then directly into two tracks of driving, distorted rock featuring the grungy shredding of a guest guitarist. Each time this shift happened, I thought to myself “ok now this must be what the band is REALLY about,” and each time I was blindsided when they took on yet another different style, seemingly out of nowhere.
This genre-ambiguity is fairly characteristic of how Vulgar Savior presents itself as a band. The group’s description on Streetvoice2 lists their style as being “representative of K-indie with added elements of Rock, R&B, Funk, psychedelic, City Pop, and other genres.” The straddling of many different genres, I’ve learned, is not uncommon among Taiwanese indie rock bands; in Vulgar Savior’s case, though, it manifests not only across songs, but also within them. These genre-straddling tracks abound on the band’s debut album, “The Vulgar Weekly: Countdown to the End of the World” (末日倒數的庸俗週記), which tells an intricate story that touches on frustration, isolation, self-doubt, snarky freedom, love, and acceptance, roughly in that order.
Musically, the album features two very distinct performance modes: at one extreme we get airy and dreamy psychedelic indie pop, with open guitar shapes and nostalgic-sounding, chromatically shifting chord progressions reminiscent of other Taiwanese indie acts like deca joins. At the other end of the spectrum we get defiant rock anthems with crunchy harmonies and ripping guitar solos. On the surface, this might seem like it would result in a project that is scattered or unfocused, but what makes this bimodal approach to storytelling really work is Vulgar Savior’s ability to explore the space in between the two extremes. Pockets of lo-fi sneak in amongst dissonant psychedelic choruses on the opening track 快樂都市人/Happy City Guys, and the depressed echoey 3/4 ballad “Happy Sad” is punctuated with a slide guitar solo whose energy bubbles up just enough to cross the line from chill into angsty. The sonic palette of the album isn’t limited to these two vibes, either, with groovier influences injecting a dose of liveliness and soul into tracks like 閃閃/Shining and 散個步/take a walk. The wide emotional range of the record is made convincing by wonderfully subtle vocal performances from lead singer 宋家耘 SONG, and supported by colorful synthesizer and organ playing from guitarist 陳千煒 Chien Wei Chen. The shifting moods across the album are delightfully unpredictable, but never feel unnatural, making the record very fun to listen to, front to back.
Favorite Track Deep Dive: 世界太大/Colossal World
No track encapsulates the dual identity of this album better than 世界太大/Colossal World. It’s the fifth song on the album, falling almost perfectly in the middle of its runtime. The track directly follows the lowest energy song on the album, Happy Sad, whose lethargic, emotionally spent vocals end on a downturn, with a slide guitar slowly descending into an unresolved wavering minor chord and fading into noise. From this depressing uncertainty, the intro to Colossal World erupts with a screaming guitar solo, supported by hits from the drums and bass, crashing in in groups of threes. Coming from nothing, the leaps and falls of the electric guitar pick us up and throw us into the midst of a stadium rock show.
And then, almost immediately, we retreat back into the soft energy of a bedroom indie pop ballad. Less than 30 seconds from the burning opening riff, an atmospheric synth pad is hovering in the background, evoking the nostalgia of 90s mandopop as the vocalist begins to quietly sing in a deliberate, plodding rhythm about the dark sky encroaching above. As quickly as it came in, though, the calm energy is disrupted by the entrance of a fuzzy distorted guitar, leading the band to a false climax before the instrumentals cut out entirely. For a few seconds more than is comfortable, the vocalist is left standing alone, lamenting the crushing weight of life. Just as she says she “can’t go any further (無法再往前進了),” the band comes back in a piece at a time, growing in intensity, until finally, after the lines “give up on me // I will disappoint you (放棄我吧 // 我會讓你失望)” the band returns with the full force of the intro, barreling into a riled-up chorus where the singer desperately tries to convey the pain she’s been wrestling with, pain which the person she’s singing to never seems to be able to see.
You might expect this sudden back and forth to cause some sort of emotional whiplash, if not for the excellent vocal performance. Every entrance of the band is telegraphed by a palpable shift in tone from the singer, even if only a bar or two ahead. The mood swings are extreme, yes, but they come across as organic, justified, and from the heart. As is true with much of the album, however, what really elevates 世界太大/Colossal World as a track is the attention to detail and variety in sound design. Aside from the nostalgic synth pads and contrasting guitar tones, the vibrato of the jazz organ as a supporting voice in the chorus introduces a wavering instability which betrays the emotional volatility underlying the assertive vocals, and colors the mix with a heaping tablespoon of soul. The second verse also brings a nice variety of new colors. My personal favorite is the second time the band drops out in the pre-chorus: this time, the vocalist is not left in total silence, but rather sings over very quiet, slowly growing feedback, which gnaws at the ear and adds the extra level of tension needed to propel the band into the final chorus and outro.
When I saw Vulgar Savior perform this song live, the last unresolved guitar note rang out and echoed over a rapt audience. In an audience of a few hundred, the only sound that could be heard for a full minute was the air conditioning3. I get a little bit of that feeling every time I listen to this track — at the end I’m left reeling from the sheer scale of it all.
other little details (that make the album special)
the silly and cute synth counterpoint in the background of 那就恭喜/Then Congratulations
the cheerful soul riffs in 閃閃/Shining, with a twinge of the blues cropping up between verses
when the vocalist sings 安眠曲/Lullaby, she is singing a lullaby to someone about how their presence is like a lullaby to her. meta
the incredibly simple but achingly beautiful and nostalgic synth solo at the end of that lullaby
the intense melancholy of the sad but unwavering vocals in 窗簾/Curtain
the destabilizing mixed meter drums played under the lyrics “tick tock tick (滴答滴)” on the track 快樂都市人/Happy City Guys
once again, the ORGAN. it’s subtle, but it adds so much across the album
Vulgar Savior has released a couple singles and an EP since their debut, including some certified bangers (check out 一口一口, released early into 2023). Despite this, I still think "The Vulgar Weekly: Countdown to the End of the World" is their most representative work to date, and the best way to get a feel for the band. The record is an outcry against the world, a breakup album, and a love story all rolled into one, narrating one person’s complex and winding journey from disillusionment to optimism. An unabashedly positive conclusion might seem odd for an album with apocalypse in the title, but it works. With the last two lines of the final track, 閃閃/Shining, Vulgar Savior sums up the case for hopefulness without sugarcoating the difficulties of life:
生命充滿了變化 有時會迷失方向
Life is full of changes, sometimes you lose your way
努力跳動的心臟 依然可以再次發光
A heart that beats hard can still shine again
Happy Listening!
Streetvoice is a Taiwanese indie music platform similar to Bandcamp.
This energy kicked off the second phase of the concert, where instead of bouncing around between genres, the band focused in on more intimate and emotional indie ballads — that’s when I actually started to feel like I understood “what this band was REALLY about.”
The world is colossal indeed