Los Angeles dark folk and progressive rockers Vitskär Süden announce the release of their third studio album “Vessel” on May 17th through Californian label Ripple Music. Stream the hypnotic debut single “Vengeance Speaks” on all streaming platforms now!
The opening track of Vitskär Süden’s new album “Vessel” begins with plaintive vocals and a solitary guitar. Hear our plea. Show your presence… “It’s essentially a prayer to the Elder Gods,” says vocalist Martin Garner. “‘Save us from ourselves.’ It’s stark. I’m exposed in a way I haven’t been vocally in our music before, but I wanted the despair of the text to come through. As the song progresses, this character who’s been begging for salvation begins to call for fire, wrath and revenge, and the build the guys created musically really illustrates that.”
The band’s first foray into live strings, “Vengeance Speaks” offers cellist Max Mueller and violinist Emily Moore adding heft and scope, as well as a soaring vocal solo by Kristi Merideth. “With dark angels descending from the heavens lyrically we needed a female voice in play to paint the full picture,” says Garner. “Kristi improvised this amazing solo in a couple of takes. We all heard it for the first time when we were mixing the record in Austin and our jaws were on the floor.”
Vitskär Süden’s new album “Vessel” contemplates the fragility of human life in the form of a weird fiction collection of sorts. From post-apocalyptic, rain-soaked forests and sunken Lovecraftian cities to turbulent seas and marshy battlefields, the record guides listeners through portals to seven distinctive soundscapes. They expand their sonic arsenal with the additions of strings, synth and electronic elements, leaning further into progressive rock territory while remaining singularly themselves all the while. “Sonically we wanted to go further with what we started in The Faceless King, using different instrumentation, more synths, piano, and strings,” says guitarist Julian Goldberger. “I think we all wanted to stretch out a bit and lean into the atmosphere and vibe that was emerging from these dark tales.”
The album continues the band’s collaboration with co-producer/mixer Don Cento and also features guest appearances from cellist Max Mueller, violinist Emily Moore and pianist Rich Martin as well as vocalists Kristi Merideth and Isabel Beyoso.
“Vessel is as smooth as a morphine drip that sends you gliding over oceans of molten darkness.” – Laird Barron, author of Not a Speck of Light (stories)
VITSKÄR SÜDEN – New album “Vessel”
Out May 17th on Ripple Music (vinyl/CD/digital)
International preorder / US preorder
TRACKLIST:
1. Vengeance Speaks
2. R’lyeh
3. Through Tunnels They Move
4. Hidden By The Day
5. Tattered Sails
6. Everyone, All Alone
7. Elegy
Vitskär Süden is a cross-genre rock band that merges evocative storytelling with rich sonic texture, fusing elements of neo-psych, space, doom and progressive rock. The Los Angeles-based quartet’s material often features weird fiction sensibilities and feels cinematic in scope – understandable given the fact that most of the members met through filmmaking before bonding musically.
The band appeared on the radar in 2020 with a self-titled, cosmic horror-inspired debut Metal Hammer Magazine described as offering “epic soundscapes as soothing as a blood-red Californian sunset”. The album landed at #17 on Doom Charts’ best of the year list. In 2022 the band signed with Ripple Music and released “The Faceless King”, a dark fantasy concept album weaving the origin story of the record’s antihero namesake. Special editions of the vinyl release were accompanied by an RPG module written by band members and expanding on the album’s story.
Their latest record “Vessel” sees the band pushing genre boundaries yet again, experimenting with additional progressive elements while transporting listeners through seven distinctive soundscapes. Vitskär Süden continues their ascent as one of the most unique musical voices on the underground rock scene.
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