By Jason Walker
Vasa are still a somewhat new band to myself. I only became aware of them when they were announced for a chunk of Thank You Scientist’s most recent tour before popping up on ArcTanGent’s line-up – a show I’m very, very keen on after checking this album out. Hailing from Glasgow, which currently seems to be a bit of a hotbed for Scottish rock and metal, the instrumental post-rock quartet dropped ‘Heroics’ this month which I’ve been listening to fairly frequently since. Clocking in at ten tracks, each of them at quite disparate song lengths, but each track is clearly exactly what it needs to be in the greater context of the album.
Post-rock is one of those genres where it’s hard to really form an opinion on an album without listening to it properly and getting some context, often having songs that are quite dynamic in nature and not really conforming to the typical intro-verse-chorus style of song writing. So I’ve had to give this album quite a number of listens to before I could actually sit and write something out about it, it’s quite an interesting album overall that moves between some quite heavy and intense parts to more sombre and melancholy passages which creates some fantastic atmospheric listening.
The contrast between heavier and more ambient style of writing is extremely apparent between ‘Everything Is Golden’ and ‘Adolescence’ with the former being a heavy, dynamic song that works with a throbbing rhythm that drops into some really groovy parts that’s accented by reverb laden guitar bits, this shows that post-rock can be heavy when it wants to. ‘Everything Is Golden’ is also one of my favourite tracks on this album, I really enjoy the whole airy sound it’s got, it feels like a very grand and big number that’d be worthwhile of a live set finisher. ‘Adolescence’ starts far more quietly but don’t let this fool you, this eventually builds into a massive noisy crescendo which utilises noisy feedback against big droney chord hits, it may not start as a headbanger but it’ll certainly draw you in by the time it’s done.
‘Prom Night’ is another standout for me, this one comes across as much happier in its tone, the drums much busier, the pace of the song itself is more jumpy. Vasa have really got their dynamic style on full display here as it works through distinct parts of the song but staying coherent, the raw rhythmic guitar tone in juxtaposition to the very sparkly and light tone of the lead playing arpeggios is a fantastic clash while you’ve got the rhythm section of the band going bonkers underneath it all; Here’s hoping this one’s going to be a live set addition.
‘Victoria’ is another great example of how post-rock can be pretty damn heavy too, showing off a bit of a prog-metal staple of off-beat guitar grooves over the top of the drums, a favourite of many bands that I listen to on a regular basis so it’s nice to hear those sort of influences in Vasa’s writing.
To see the album out, ‘Expectations’ provides a lengthy build to a big crescendo that again clashes a slow arpeggio with a busy rhythmic part underneath it that slowly builds intensity before fading out to ‘Settle’, which initially starts out with a melancholy intro before building a more prog metal style mid-point which sounds closer to the sort of stuff you’d hear from the likes of Haken. As with a lot of the album, you have sweet sounding arpeggios being played over heavy rhythm parts, in this case heavy bends that you just want to thrash your head around to, a small break part way through to the main melody on its own before everything comes back in to see the album out.
Vasa have put together a pretty bloody interesting album that I’m really looking forward to hearing in a live context, there’s a great marrying here of reverb-laden melodies vs crushing slow riffs to really drive home the rhythm of the songs. Their influences are put to excellent use and it’s a clear display of a band not just working well together but having enough trust in each other to work with ideas that would often be regarded as a stylistic clash.
FFO: Explosions In The Sky, The Physics House Band, And So I Watch You From Afar
- ‘Heroics’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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