THE VEILS - ...AND OUT OF THE VOID CAME LOVE
The Veils’ new album …And Out Of The Void Came Love is a rich testament to the wonderfully crafted sound and aesthetic that the band has been creating and expanding since their emergence in 2001. With their most recent release Total Depravity being in the summer of 2016, it was crucial for the band to give listeners an experience that remained true to their original blueprint but would give us more. The English/New Zealander quintet ensures that they won't appear to listeners and loyal fans as stagnant, relying on archaic ideas for inspiration. Instead they formulate a gorgeous record filled with much depth and extremely captivating lyricism.
The band has a certain allure about them that can draw in even the most rock phobic individuals. It is perhaps most accentuated by their fedora-wearing frontman Finn Andrews who sings as if he has been here before. His aureate voice sounds like a cathartic release, a dulcet bird trying to find its way out of a storm filled with affliction and despair. Finn’s melancholic delivery fits well with the suspenseful tone of the Southern folk inflicted rock that they are known for. The Veils build a new world and open the doors for us to view it in all of its gray and eerie glory. In truth, it feels like a resurrection of sorts for the band after being away for such a long time. While harnessing the emotional gravity of Total Depravity, The Veils place an emphasis on the power of words to really capture the essence of what they seek to tell.
…And Out Of The Void Came Love places our attention on the speaker’s story. The Veils don’t want the experience to be limited to the calm nature that you hear in the production from beginning to end. They want you to feel the words, and understand that those rhyming sentences are meaningful and luminescent. Finn Andrews songwriting ,as always, is exceptional, laden with vivid, florid language that isn’t in any way pretentious but an entry into a picturesque and unusual land. The production is stirring, brooding with a sense of contemplation that mirrors the songwriting.
It could be said that this album at its heart is a spiritual journey. On songs like ‘Time’ Andrews ruminates on the meaning of that significant thing everyone wants more of besides money and happiness. ‘No Limit of Stars’ poses the often asked question, “What else is out there beyond our little galaxy?How are our individual existences created and maintained when all of us face the same fate?” Andrews takes the celestial bodies hanging in the night sky and turns them into characters, the ones watching us quietly from afar.
This record amplifies the power of raw, stripped back instrumentation that can convey the full scope of an artist’s musical intention. ‘Rings of Saturn’ begins with just Andrews and the hushed arpeggios of a piano. The chorus blossoms into a garden of poignant background vocals and tender violin vignettes. ‘Made From Love with Far to Go’ embodies the spirit of an old Western ballad, telling the grave story of an individual riddled with pain and contempt, yet still ambling towards the sunset where love resides. The folkloric thematic concept continues into songs like ‘The Day I Meet My Murderer’ exercising Andrews’ abilities as a compelling storyteller
There are instances throughout the album where it begins to feel a little less like a light gothic serenade and slightly modern in ambience. ‘Diamonds and Coal’ has a mysterious quality to it, drawing upon hypnotic, new-age motifs that include ethereal synthesizer phrases and guitars that cascade like white waters down a rough fall. This stretched sonnet, heavy with the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the ugly, a symbol of the wayward nature of love. ‘Epoch’ contains heavy, industrial drums that add momentum to a thought-provoking speech regaling us on the inevitable demise of humanity. “I'll paint you a picture of our future / Unwrap the wound to a tune then rip out the sutures / Truths that are too vast to mention / You’re just a child lost in the wilderness of comprehension!”
This has proven to be a remarkable return for The Veils. In a time where seven years feels much longer and some would say that the band had fallen off into obscurity, they gave us an album so telling and so complete that it can’t be relegated to a comeback album, but a reminder that in spite of all, still they remain–thriving, living, existing, and searching for those little reservoirs of love and beauty in the midst of it all.
Alana Brown-Davis
★★★★☆