Hailing from San Diego, CA, Pierce The Veil has been a band for 10 years (officially just this fall). The band was created out of the remnants of a previous band (created in 1998) -- Before Today -- which included brothers Vic and Mike Fuentes. Now the singer/guitarist and drummer of PTV respectively, the brothers can boast that they've been in the business for almost 20 years. Adding in guitarist Tony Perry and bass guitarist Jaime Preciado, you have a musicial brotherhood that just works in all the best ways.
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From their first studio album, "A Flair For The Dramatic" (2007) to their most current and anticipated album, "Misadventures" (2016), Pierce The Veil has shown that they obviously know what they are doing when it comes to creating hit albums. But buried in their four albums are my personal picks for their most underrated tunes. Here they are:
1. "Sambuka" -- Misadventures (2016)
PTV was absent from music for almost three years, making fans and critics alike concerned that their new album they'd been talking about for those three years wasn't going to happen. Then in 2015, they released the song "The Divine Zero" and insisted that the album was going to happen later that year. Again, nothing -- fans were getting restless. Then, in the summer of 2016, "Misadventures" blessed our ears with songs like "Floral And Fading", "Today I Saw The Whole World" and "Dive In".
"Sambuka", being the shortest song on the album and the second to the last song on the album, is forgotten because of the songs it was smashed between. Easily skippable because of extremely emotional song that follows it, many fans either skip over it or they don't listen to the album all the way through to enjoy this song. With androgynous croons from V. Fuentes, "Sambuka" is most notably similar to their past music.
Memorable lyrics: /Call me if you're crashing/ we'll take turns/
2. "Diamonds And Why Men Buy Them" -- A Flair For The Dramatic (2007)
"A Flair For The Dramatic" is widely known as PTV's most underrated album, for reasons that are unknown to me. This album, not only was PTV's first venture as a band, but is also so sickly sweet and twisted that it has a charm that not many bands of it's age could've pulled off. With extreme hits like "Currents Convulsive", "Yeah Boy And Dollface" and "Chemical Kids And Mechanical Brides", "A Flair For The Dramatic" is memorable in its own right but not to the extent that it's operatic choruses deserve.
"Diamonds And Why Men Buy Them", which describes what could be interpreted as a backseat, drunk tryst that developed feelings in the form of a teenage angst drama, is a later song on the album. All of the albums big singles are featured in the beginning of the album, so its an honest mistake for a casual fan to drop off listening after those songs. "Diamonds" is a song that deserves more though -- if not only for the song writing and the illusions made by them.
Memorable lyrics: /Now I saw the moon divorce the sky / Is this what it's like?/
3. "Fast Times At Clairemont High" -- Selfish Machines (2010)
I may be biased but not only is this my favorite song by PTV (I have a tattoo for this song specifically), it's also my favorite album by them too. "Selfish Machines" was a venture that took PTV from the angsty inner cirles of Southern California to the mainstream conciousness of the post-hardcore genre. With traditional Mexican music themes, dramatic wailing and superior song writing, "Selfish Machines" was the recipe for success that PTV needed.
Though "Fast Times At Clairemont High", which is a play on the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" using the highschool that both Fuentes brothers attended, is a more poppy venture on the album -- it still holds those emotional cries from V. Fuentes partnered with contagious guitar riffs. "Fast Times" is truly about the difficulties of love and how to deal with loss when things don't work as planned.
Memorable lyrics: /So melodramatic but it turns me on/ I close my eyes it feels just like a movie / I'm convinced that we don't make sense / but I'd kill anyone who gets close /
4. "One Hundred Sleepless Nights" -- Collide With The Sky (2012)
PTV has always been good at decpicting heartbreak in a way that was not only extremely dramatic but extremely relatable too. "Collide With The Sky" is an album that is almost exclusively about heartbreak and relationships that you want so desperately to work out. With songs like "King For A Day", "Hell Above", and "A Match Into Water, this album is kind of like swallowing barbed wire with your favorite drink. You love the taste of it, but afterwards it hurts. It's so painfully relatable that you just can't help but do it over and over again like you can't remember the pain. Which, ironically, can allude to the relationships the album paints.
"One Hundred Sleepless Nights" is no exception to the love-hate relationship theme of this album. The song depicts a relationship where the woman cheats and gets pregnant by her other lover and the boyfriend goes insane with jealousy, stating "You're leaving me just when I thought you were mine". The boyfriend goes to reflect that he can't live without her in an "if I can't have you, no one can" way but knows that their love is now and maybe always has been, one sided.
Memorable lyrics: /Do you still love me?/ I am dying to know / Or did you forget what we shared / Out of sight, out of mind, I was never even there /
5. "The Sky Under The Sea" -- Selfish Machines (2010)
As previously discussed, "Selfish Machines" was a tight and powerful venture by the foursome and holds some truly great songs. One of those songs happens to be the last song on the album, "The Sky Under The Sea", which for me is arguably one of the best songs to end and album ever.
With a high energy beginning, middle and end, this song gives no rest to the listener until the VERY LAST SECTIONS when it fades out with underwater noises. Not only is this song CRUDELY UNDERAPPRECIATED for its lyrics, images, musical accompaniment but it also holds nods to PTV's not so distance past. The lyric "A celebration of an ending" is a direct reference to Before Today's album titled the same. The song is spattered with metaphorical and literal hints to suicide, or more likely, the main character wanting to die in a fit of passion -- to have a better life or chance to be with the woman who controls him.
The song also bares a direct reference to the album's title, "Selfish Machines", in which the song is about said selfish machine -- the main character. A selfish machine lives within all of us, an unfeeling hunk of metal that only cares about itself and what it wants.
Memorable lyrics: /Sharpen your teeth and bite as hard as you want/
