Josh Staples might seem like a detractor of his former fold,
Santa Rosa’s the Velvet Teen. Since he left the increasingly
pop-oriented band, his subsequent delve into gloomier material seems
like a complete disassociation from their artistic direction. But when
the time came for him to split, to focus full-time on his venerable
side project the New Trust, Staples stumbled upon a songwriting fire
previously masked during his tenure under the watchful wave of Velvet
Teen singer Judah Nagler’s baton.
The band’s latest full-length, Get Vulnerable, was
self-released—and the decision to go fully DIY was answered
musically by a wholly vibrant gloom. The overriding theme seems to be
of deep confessions, the need to feel vulnerable exemplified by richly
dark analogies of howling wolves, adultery, self-consciousness,
dishonesty, and greed. Heavy melodies split into dicey cadences,
fluttering under Staples’ patented, magnetic vibrato, and punctuated by
distorted bass strums, while minor-chord and octave-chopped ruminations
via guitarist (and Staples’ wife) Sara Sanger and the flailing, steady
snaps of Julia Lancer’s syncopated drumming add a new depth to their
menagerie of sound.
There’s an urgency etched into the very tone that disavows any easy
connection to the group’s previous efforts, and makes songs like “The
Suffering of Fools” eerily heavy, something this band was definitely
not known for prior to this release. Other tracks suffer in turn,
reeling like worms on the end of a lure, writhing like sassy toddlers
in unobserved playpens, but it all breathes “real life” just the same.
Take “Make Me Deaf,” a not-so-stunted jab at the ineffectual paths that
formerly integral underground bands have taken with their ascensions
into super mega-stardom (“What will you sing about?/Now the world is
listening”) as proof positive the band has turned a new and vengeful
corner.
To top it off, the band has emerged as much more impressive in the
live setting, having pared down to a three-piece in recent years,
yielding a more intimate weapon with which to barrage their fanbase. We
welcome this shift with open ears