New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Influential band stands among a select few of the most revered second-wave emo / indie bands of all time including their peers in The Promise Ring, Mineral, Christie Front Drive, Boys Life, Braid
After twenty-five years of waiting, New York City cult indie favourites The Van Pelt are set to release a brand new album titled 'Artisans & Merchants,' to be released March 17th jointly by Spartan Records in North America, La Castanya in Europe/World and
Gringo in the UK.
The album was recorded and mixed in Summer / Fall 2021 by Jeff Zeigler (The War On Drugs, Kurt Vile) at Uniform Recording in Philadelphia, PA, and features guest appearances by Nate Kinsella and Ted Leo among others.
Today, the band have offered us another taste of the forthcoming album with new single 'Image Of Health', a song that beautifully encapsulates all that is special and unique about The Van Pelt's sound. Simmering guitars, driving drums and urgent, passionate words and vocals from frontman Chris Leo show a band at the peak of their powers.
If you are an historic fan of Chris Leo's vox then you accept that a certain amount of excess verbiage comes with the territory. That being said, in the words of that same Chris Leo in the year 2022 "I'm a middle-aged man now.
Straightforward, cutting to the point dialogue speaks much more to me than circuitous lofty rants. I knew a lot when I was young and what I didn't know I wasn't afraid to propose as arguments in unwinnable fights for the sake of pushing discourse into novel realms.
Now that I'm halfway through a century though, there's been this need in me to touch home base, revisit basic tenets with wiser eyes and a worldview humbled by it being smashed to pieces over and over again.
So many of my modern lyrics need no Cliff's Notes. They are so clear and direct that they only require the listener to bring their own humble vulnerability to the table as well. Addressing these lifelong elephants in the room feels more apt to me at this stage in life than dissecting astrophysics."
With that folks, we give you 'Image of Health', a song whose lyrics are explained in the lyrics themselves.
