The slightly non-cheery but realistic concept behind the album title is that “you’re born into the world as a blank canvas. As you meet people and experience things, you’re getting stained and torn up.”
Recorded a few weeks into the lockdown, the Boston five-piece literally shut themselves in the studio with legendary producer Will Putney. No one was getting in and no one was getting out. The resulting collection is a 12-track journey that reflects that danger and tension of that time period, and draws on some of the experiences the band have been through themselves between release of 2018 debut ‘Errorzone’ to now, four years and a pandemic later.
If any one track reflects that chaos and discordancy it’s probably ‘Versus Wyoming’ – an under one minute mess of evil noise and cacophony. But that track is only one indication of the overall sound of the album. A dark, loud and at times intimidating offering of heavy goodness, there’s a real sense of nihilism amongst the lyrics and an embittered view of the world. Sonically there’s a lot of lower tuned tracks and it’s much heavier and more evil-sounding than ‘Errorzone’. Check out penultimate ‘Wavery’ with its eerie tolling bells of death and haunting vocal delivery. A real highlight that leaves you slightly breathless.
There’s also three features on the record, which the band noted reflected their influences. Jeff Smith (Jeromes Dream) has a small cameo on ‘Hellnight’ – it’s literally five words. Michigan rapper Bones comes out of his comfort zone to do some screaming on ‘Orgy In The Morgue’. And Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly sings the middle part of ‘Fear In Non Fiction’. His distinctive vocal style comes in and just the right time for the record and really breaks up the feeling of darkness and chaos nicely.
A lot of the songs are under two minutes – some under one minute. Sometimes this works. At other times it leaves the listener slightly frustrated at the untapped potential of a track which could have been developed further. ‘Magazine Beach’, for example, could have gone in many different interesting directions. It’s one of the more melodic offerings on the album with echoes of early 2000s screamo.
At contrast to that is final track ‘Funeral Sound’, a 7-minute opus which at times truly does give the effect of the darkness one might expect from a funeral but is equally beautiful, haunting and impactful. It opens with the softest, most delicately sang vocals on the record before exploding into dramatic power chords. A wonderful example of the band’s forray into some more experimental areas – trying out new things and different territories.
This is Vein.fm at their most heavy and their most frightening, exploring the world of possibilities opening up in front of them as they harness the bleakness of society to further their impact on the heavy music scene.