If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Roger Sargent If you also can't wait for the new album from Nottingham's Vona Vella even though it's out tomorrow, you're in luck! The band just released one last single from the album, "Brand New Boy." This one is quieter than the previous singles, but still has the dream pop sound we've come to love from them. This one adds in a little bit of the groovy 60's, and if you're anything like me, combining dream pop and 60's pop is kind of a something I didn't know I needed. "Brand New Boy" is such a smooth sounding song that will inject itself into your soul in the best possible way. We're less than twenty-four hours until the new single from Vona Vella, and we could not be more excited. Singer Izzy says of the band's latest single: “One of mine. Very Velvet Underground. About someone being too good to be true. About not believing something could be so good, so you’re holding off, waiting for it to go wrong.” You can...

Photo by Erasmo Viera One of the best parts of the current wave of shoegaze bands is the resurgence of heavy shoegaze. Based on their latest single, trauma ray are about to become one of our favorites of the subgenre. "Hannibal" is a monster of a song, and is shoegaze in the way that Deftones have been as of late. It's loud, but with a wave of warm fuzz that gently washes over you. A lot of similar artists make music to gently bop your head to, but trauma ray is full on headbanging music. Instead of being brutal, "Hannibal" is filled with gentle musical moments that truly make it stand out. It's pulverizing music, for sure, but it leaves a lot of room to notice its beauty. Vocalist Uriel Avila says of his band's latest single: “It’s a song about the feeling of doing your best as an individual yet still falling short in the eyes of those you hope to make proud. A lot of it stems from internal battles I faced growing up with my father, role models, and rel...

"You Can Be So Ugly" is the kind of song you're going to fall in love with within the first seven seconds. Vona Vella have done something truly special here. The Nottingham based band have created this sound that is partly early The Strokes and partly dream pop. A lot of the guitars and vocals are reminiscent of the first Strokes album, but everything is a little more jangly and coated in a thing layer of haze. Not to mention that "You Can Be So Ugly" is almost too catchy, possibly due to a little bit of 60's doo wop hiding just under the surface. We were first won over by Vona Vella back in September, and "You Can Be So Ugly" has us even more enamored. Co-founders Izzy Davis and Dan Cunningham say of their new single: "It's about accepting the ugly side of friendships or relationships. Even your favourite people have that side to them but you learn to live with it if you want to be around them. It's saying 'you can be a right idio...

Photo by Roger Sargent Nottingham's Vona Vella have an intriguing new single out that is fairly straightforward but still hard to define. "Carnival" has quite a few elements of indie pop, but it's a little too rock based for that. It's an undeniably catchy and lovely song, with fuzzy guitars. It's the type of song that instantly grabs you with the first guitar riff. It's reminding me of Jeff Buckley's heavier songs filtered through a modern alt-pop prism. "Carnival" is a little pop, a little alt-rock, a little punk, and maybe even a little folk. Vona Vella are an interesting band with a giant potential based on this new single. Vocalist/songwriter Dan Cunningham says of the band's latest single: “ It was written when life was getting on top of me and I felt that my head was spinning out of control. I use the funfair as a metaphor because the overstimulating scenes there reflected my emotional state. The verse is Izzy [bandmate and partner...