Vultoro Premiere “Blue Radio” Video; A Violent Daydream Due in May
Philadelphia’s Vultoro will release their debut album, A Violent Daydream, May 27. That’s a solid release date as of the day before yesterday. Despite its somewhat foreboding title and grim artwork, the full-length — which is not an insignificant undertaking at just under 56 minutes — is rife with major-key exuberance, and from the opener “Blue Radio” (live video premiering below) onward, Vultoro remind of nothing so much as earlier, self-titled-era Floor, which if you can happen to see the t-shirt I’m wearing right this second, you’ll understand is not a compliment I pass out lightly.
The double-guitar, multi-vocalist four-piece are performing live at New Jersey’s Blue Light Digital Sound (where the album was also recorded) in the clip for “Blue Radio,” and their sound is somewhat rawer as a result than in the finished product of the record-proper, but it still represents them well melodically and in terms of both their tonal thickness and the progressive 
edge they offer in the tapped-out solo and ensuing crunch. The Floor comparison above holds firm throughout much of A Violent Daydream, but another manner in which “Blue Radio” offers a glimpse of the album as a whole is in its fleshed-out runtime. Vultoro dig into younger-Mastodon-ish growling intensity on the shorter “Cathlocide” and convincingly delve into proggier atmospheres on the penultimate “Scrumlord,” but even across the nine-minute “Jopanu” or the washer-nodder finale in “Puzzled Puzzles,” the vocal melodies soar, and that’s very plainly a focal point for the band. Fair enough. Frankly, if you can sing like guitarist Mat Hause does on “Immaculate Sun,” you should.
And along with the solidified groove of drummer Nick Santangelo holding together some of A Violent Daydream‘s more technical moments, the vocals do much to unite the material as well through its varied moods and atmospheres, from the dizzying emergence of “March Away” to the resonant electric energy of “Superglue” and “Bike Song” earlier on. With guitarist Alec Sye (who also mixed) and bassist Jack-Matt Norton adding voices to the fray, Vultoro readily engage with their shifts in arrangement throughout, displaying a sense of their own sonic persona amid the tenets of sludge pop, adding danger and aggression to “Jopanu” and “Cathlocide,” sneakily patient tempo changes to “Immaculate Sun” and hints toward heavy post-rock in “Puzzled Puzzles” that speak to the complexity of their songwriting now as well as much they might go on to achieve from here.
By the time the plug for the t-shirt shows up at the end of the “Blue Radio” video, I’m about ready to place an order. Just a heads up, you find might yourself in a similar position. Especially as their debut — and one not preceded by a swath of EPs or short releases; “Blue Radio” and “March Away” are streaming as singles on Bandcamp, but that’s it — the promise held in A Violent Daydream is palpable.
I hope you enjoy:
Vultoro, “Blue Radio” video premiere
Mat Hause on “Blue Radio”:
The song is the first single from our debut record, that record is titled A Violent Daydream. There’s two singles from it out now on all the platforms, Blue Radio and a track called March Away.
This video (and another one we did for March Away that we’ll be premiering at a later date) were conceived as an homage to the live performances from the late 60’s and early 70′ on the german tv program “Beat Club”. This video is a live performance that we did in front of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig ass green screen scroll I built that we set up in the live room at Blue Light Digital Sound in Mt. Holly NJ. We DIY’d this pretty hard. I directed, edited, and did all of the effects with some additional analog haze provided by Grant Bouvier. Jaime Gowell at Blue Light ran the session from a recording standpoint, and the other guitarist in the band, Alec Sye, mixed it. We’re from Philly, recorded at Blue Light Digital Sound in Mt. Holly NJ as well as Bunker Studios in Brooklyn New York. Engineered by Alec Sye and Nolan Thies.
A Violent Daydream Tracklisting:
Blue Radio
Superglue
Bike Song
Catholicide
Immaculate Sun
Jopanu
March Away
Scrumlord
Puzzled Puzzles
Album Cover Artist: Paolo Girardi
Mastering: Brad Boatright
When: Late Spring/Early Summer 2022
Band:
Jack-Matt Norton – Bass/Strings/backing vocals
Nick Santangelo – Drums
Alec Sye – Guitar/backing vocals
Mat Hause – Guitar/Vocals
