"The Vibration are the one's to watch: West coast 60's rock n roll with at least two of Gang Of Four pounding the drums." - Record Collector

"The Vibration is an all girl group and they are as close to the Spice Girls as Hole are to the Bangles – meaning they really don’t give a monkey about anything and they kick ass! Signed to Sink and Stove for UK release, The Vibration are new on the scene in Europe but I’m sure it won’t take long for complete world domination! The songs are well put together, simplistic and a fine example of indie rock at it’s best. Ann Fitzgerald’s vocals are similar to that of Cat Power with the strength and independence of PJ Harvey. ‘Sweet Oil’, the first track of the EP is my favourite. It builds slowly with minimal instruments, the guitars getting more distorted throughout the song as the drums change the pace and the track gets real dirty. Standout vocals from Fitzgerald. Bring on the album." - Funky Mofo

"It's hard to say what the Vibration are. They're a band of four women from New York via San Francisco, but beyond that it gets more difficult. According to the press release, they make "expressive and vibrant indie-rock", which is true, but it doesn't quite capture the full breadth or depth of what the Vibration are capable of. 'Ear to the Ground' chronicles their first year as a quartet proper, and comprises the first five songs the band wrote together.
On that basis, they have a lot to live up to when the album arrives. From the beginning of the opener, 'Sweet Oil', it is clear that the band are on to something special. It's a slow-burning growling beast of a song that is both dark and welcoming at once. The band are supremely focused and the sound is tight, moving through any number of influences from Siouxsie Sioux to Slint and Throwing Muses. But they're not derivative, to the extent that it's hard to fathom where this music actually came from.
It can be an unsettling experience, as they flit between tempos and even moving at times towards a lighter major key brightness to offset the predominantly heavy, dark musings of the majority of the music. Second track ‘Vibration’ is lighter but much tauter, making it an even more unsettling listen. 'Begin Again' is a remarkable piece of rock music, like they’re channelling PJ Harvey across the ocean, and 'Badge' is a towering movement of pain shot though with enough energy to still be standing at the end.
It’s never depressing, though, and you can feel the passion and the bravado shine right through. Bristol-based indie label Sink and Stove, whose most recent major-league transfers were local boys Chikinki, who are starting to make an impact on Island, have picked up the New Yorkers for their 13th release, and it’s a good one. It’s fair to say that, to those who have heard this, the album, due next year, will be eagerly anticipated." - Penny Black Music

"On the first listen, The Vibration sound like a cross between Sleater-Kinney and The Slits. Upon a second listen, you realise that this a crass comparison that you've only made because they have a female singer. While you could quite justifiably file The Vibration alongside such bands, on further investigation they turn out to be an altogether different kind of beast. While it would be nice to move away from the female band references, they perhaps sound most like a much more aggressive take on their sometime labelmates, Mooz. A snarling, brooding and riveting full-on driven take on post-punk." - New Noise

"The Vibration are four indie-rocking girls from New York, sounding like a sedate but equally tuneful Sleater Kinney. The five tracks on this EP promise a great deal - look out for the album in 2005." - Rock Sound

"A four piece girl group who bristle with a post-punk fever, these cuts are full of bittersweet clanging guitars and a voice that caresses and grazes. If I was seventeen again I’d have pictures of The Vibration tacked to my wall and I’d be playing this EP for days. As it is I guess I’ll have to just stick with assaulting that ‘repeat’ button. File next to Sleater Kinney and Spinanes and let your heart bleed on the bedroom carpet." - Tangents

"I thought the only EP worth listening to in 2003 was TV on the Radio's ‘Young Liars’. I'm actually glad I was wrong. 9.5 out of 10." - Inverted Entertainment

"A combination of bravado and heavy drumming, spanking guitars and tough-ass female vocals. It'd be easy to compare this to bands like The Gossip, but there's more here than screamy rage/ecstasy; it surprises with a slow melancholia and dripping soul." - Punk Planet

"Listen hard and listen well. Haunting sounds and well-constructed songs come from this female foursome, Reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux, their composition and delivery is superb; nothing average – it is way better. There is something really endearing in the sound these girls have created, their strength shows" - New York Waste

"Seamless link time. Weren’t we just mentioning those bright young things of Sink and Stove, lo and behold as if by magic release number (unlucky for some) thirteen features the latest pre season signings to Bristol’s finest, the Vibration. Now we don’t really want to drop ourselves in it, but we’d like to think that by the time this New York based combos debut album is due (sometime next year) you’ll literally be climbing the walls in fevered anticipation and into the bargain they’ll be the coolest all girl band on the underground scene. This baby of a release originally saw the light of day Stateside last year on BC records and by all accounts caused a bit of a stir among those in the know selling out faster that it takes Klark Kent to whip off his three piece and get into his Super Sunday best, now given a second lease of life it’s the turn of UK and Europe to be entranced by the Vibration. As the press release so rightly admits the Vibration are not easy to categorize, over the course of the five tracks that make up this EP you’ll hear the austere landscapes of post punk rubbing shoulders with the dark atmospherics of the more gifted disciples of the goth scene in the mid 80’s (March Violets, Skeletal Family, Throwing Muses), along with some delicate nudges of math rock (Slint, mid 90’s Touch and Go) and maybe a dash of the Breeders (in particular on the semi-searing wounded ‘Badge’) and a pinch of Sleater Kinney for good measure. Yet though all these variants are true and apparent in abundance, for me the quartet nail that fictional dream meeting between prime time Television, Sonic Youth, early PJ Harvey and pre McGeoch Siouxsie and the Banshees minus the psychosis especially given that in Ann Fitzgerald they have a vocalist who encapsulates that icy paranoia so symptomatic of Siouxsie and a guitarist Randie Williams who plays McKay-esque chopping riffs oozing with subtle dark psychedelia for fun or so it seems. Playing to awkwardly fractured time signatures initial listens to the Vibration are dutifully unsettling, the sounds seemingly appear without any rudimentary structure flipping and twisting constantly in a way that impresses an edgy feel that’s enhanced by their use slow to cantering rhythmic speeds. ‘No Eyeliner’ is perhaps the best starting point, evolving as it were as though from two separate songs, regimental drum licks and campfire musings soon begin to blister and fester amid washes of feedback like a baby sister version of ‘Mirage’ poking pins into the eyeballs of ‘Switch’. ‘Vibration’ loosens up the intensity momentarily but even then its primed to the teeth in looming jarring riffs that side wind sniper like waiting to sting and ambush while ‘Begin Again’ is the evil twin sisters of the Bangles dragged kicking and screaming from a parallel universe, cruelly gorgeous and emotionally punishing with it. Best of the lot though is the beautifully unfurling sense of menace on the opening ‘Sweet Oil’. Shaded 60’s motifs scratch and stab into an ever darkening swamp haze of overpoweringly bewitching mantras and brooding storm calling spell making to slyly consume and intoxicate you before you even have the faintest glimmer or notion your under the influence. Deceivingly cool just don’t come crying to us when they go massive and we won’t have to tell you we told you so." - Losing Today