Album Review: Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, In Between Strides
Posted in Reviews on September 22nd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Patiently executed across five songs and 38 minutes, the fourth full-length from Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, titled In Between Strides, might be drilling down into moment capture as even the cover art seems to hint toward with its motion lines and about-to-step leg frozen in time. That the Stuttgart, Germany, four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Simon Weinrich (also Rhodes), guitarist Lucas Dreher, bassist Christopher Popowitsch and drummer/vocalist Marc Dreher (also also Rhodes) establish an atmospheric sprawl and are working across the span to immerse the listener in the resonance thereof shouldn’t be a terrible surprise, but the effectiveness of the build across nine-minute opener “Departure,” and the drive of its later moments is an indication of the maturity taken shape in their sound. After their 2023 album, Aion (review here), accomplished so much in terms of atmosphere and storytelling, In Between Strides might not feel quite as lofty in terms of presentation when set next to its 2LP predecessor, but from “Departure” to closer “Return Precipice,” Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree bring an emotional presence amid dynamic, sometimes psychedelic heavy post-rock, and they’ve never sounded quite so poised in doing so.
“Departure” is one of three cuts at about nine and a half minutes long, alongside the closing pair of “Elisa” and “Return Precipice,” and it flows gracefully to bring the listener into the world the band are making. It might just be that one second, that frame captured above. Is it the band trying to remind the listener of the preciousness of the time we have? I honestly don’t know, but it wouldn’t be the first time Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree worked from a thematic premise. Whatever the case, Weinrich‘s vocals are gentle and echo out as part of the float alongside the guitar as the drums do casual jazz underneath, and things grow still as they move into the midsection but pick up again on the way out with the change to the instrumental build that makes up the song’s ending section. There is a genuine feeling of breadth in the recording, which was produced by Ralv Milberg (who also mixed and mastered) alongside Weinrich, but as second cut “Respite” shows with its four minutes of quiet acoustic procession, there’s intimacy to be found in this moment as well. Before it’s over, “Respite” transitions to what might be Rhodes backwards or some kind of droning guitar effect — hard to tell — but the acoustic guitar fades out in the last minute and the slowly undulating tones carry into the silence before centerpiece “Clutching at Straws” kicks in.
At a little over five minutes, the impression is kind of that “Clutching at Straws” and “Respite” could’ve been one song, but then the album would be four songs all over nine minutes long, which is perhaps monolithic in a way they didn’t want to be. In any case, “Clutching at Straws” bursts forward after some brief intro gathering, and, rolled by the drums, is as full-brunt as the band get on In Between Strides, creating a wash of loud, encompassing ambient tonality. Russian Circles are a touchstone, or Red Sparowes when they were a thing, but both of those bands are/were instrumental, and one can’t discount the fragility in the vocal delivery as an aspect of Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree‘s persona.
Even cutting through the wall of reverb in “Clutching at Straws,” the band maintain a human presence and introspective thoughtfulness by keeping the vocals calm, and as they’re subsumed late in the track, the effect is almost like going underwater as the song quickly fades out. This brings the arrival of “Elisa” and the second half of In Between Strides, which holds to and expands on the intention of the first. And while they probably could’ve snuck a verse in there, the fact that it doesn’t feature vocals and instead brings Luis Deffner in for a guest appearance on piano adds to the experimentalism of the sound, creepy but gradually growing more welcoming as it goes until, around seven minutes in, the piano takes on the role of conveying emotion that otherwise would belong to a human voice, be it Weinrich or Dreher.
This is a subtle but potent shift in “Elisa.” Not that you don’t notice the vocals missing but as Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree plunge deeper into this soundscape, they’re hypnotic in a way that In Between Strides hasn’t yet been, and the carry it through to the last drifts, leaving the song feeling complete as its own, distinct thing. It fits well alongside the other tracks, and pairs neatly on a side with “Return Precipice,” but stands by itself too. Doing so lets “Return Precipice” all the more convey a feeling of return, and in its initial build-up there’s a sense of arrival as by the time they’re 90 seconds in, the roll-credits intro has taken flight, and a short time later the daring-seeming fuzz twist behind the shoutier vocals (is that the change between Weinrich and Dreher?) isn’t threatening the listener with going back to reality so much as showing yet another side of whatever dimension it is in which the album is playing out. Another piece of that moment, if you want to keep it on-theme. Swirling wah persists into a guitar drop-out before the four-minute mark, but it’s a quick return (!) to the verse from there, and when they hit into the slowdown, the clear message is that no, they’re not coming back.
They once again let the drums take a break as the residual frequencies let out, and at about seven minutes in, they unleash a slow roll and harsher sludge screams over about a minute of march, harnessing chaos to their own expressive ends before letting go for the song’s final stretch of slow-fading effects and melodic noise. It’s telling that they finish with “Return Precipice” rather than simply “Return” as a complement to the opener, since it’s true they’re not quite putting the listener all the way back to the ‘real world,’ but the way “Return Precipice” dissipates, it’s clear they’re getting about as close as they can. Among the most resonant aspects of In Between Strides — which exudes resonance, mind you; resonance as a central feature — is intention on the part of the band, and the sense that the expanses they conjure in sound are part of an impressionistic picture they’re painting, in this case, of that fleeting expanse of time, however brief it may or may not be. Given their past work, it’s not shocking that Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree can be so evocative, or that their evocation is put to such distinct purpose, but it does make In Between Strides all the more of an accomplishment of their craft and ongoing growth.
Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, In Between Strides (2026)
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