The Veils albums

2023

And Out of the Void Came Love - 90%

This band led by Finn Andrews (son of Barry Andrews of XTC and Shreikback fame) is trying to achieve something that is very hard, the balance between delicate touching music and hard hitting emotional confrontation. A Song like “no Limit of Stars” yearns for a deeper understanding in life, yelling at the cosmos themselves. Where “Bullfighter” with its distorted vocals and fun gallop really destroys everything in its path- similar to “Epoch”, a song that seems to reach up from the depths of hades itself. There is a huge Nick Cave influence, its almost overwhelming on “The Day I Meet My Murderer” and “rings of Saturn”, but hey…I can think of worse people to emulate, know what I mean?

          But mainly, the album is full of ballads and that is not something that is easy to promote or really advertise. I like the ballads- I honestly don’t think there is a bad song on the album. The greatest ones really do pull me in like  almost nothing else this year: “Diamonds and Coal” has that sinking chorus that flattens everything around it; “Time” is one of the better songs to tackle the repetitive subject matter about time; “I’ve Been Waiting” has an eternal quality like its been around since the dawn of time; “The World sof Invisible things” is a blur between the glory of prime era U2 and the darkness of a more modern great like Bill Callahan.

So the question is: is the record too much of a good thing? At 14 songs, I do believe a couple of them could be cut (“The Pearl Part II”, “Between the ocean and the storm” if I had to pick a couple) and still have a very cohesive listen with the occasional rock song coming through. But this is the album Andrews wanted to give us this time around, nearly an hour long of mostly ballads and that is his right. It is up for us to judge, cut up and make playlists of for sure, that is a choice we have these days. Andrews life and emotions are all on display on And Out of the Void Came Love…take from it what you will.

Best Songs: Bullfighter, No Limit of Stars, Epoch, Diamonds and Coal