Vallens Perform Songs from 'In Era'

Toronto ensemble Vallens today release their second full-length LP, In Era, via Hand Drawn Dracula and share their exclusive album release performance. Watch: Songs From In Era now.

On In Era – vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and originator/overseer Phillips and the stable Vallens core of bassist/multi-instrumentalist Devon Henderson and drummer Colin J. Morgan are still audibly figuring out who they are. But the picture of what Vallens can be and will become as time goes on is growing more confidently defined, even as it remains willfully, tantalizingly and necessarily indistinct.

Watch/Share: Vallens Perform Songs From In Era

Vallens is definitely more than a little bit noisy and swoony and “shoegaze” and troubled and romantic and Goth on In Era, and all the other terms we’ve come to associate with the name through Vallens’ evolution from a Phillips solo project in 2014 – kickstarted when Psychic TV contributor Jeff Berner talked her into recording a couple of tunes she was too nervous to play for anyone else after a chance meeting in New York – into the scorching-but-artful guitar band displayed on 2016’s debut Consent LP and 2018’s even more scorching, albeit also more artful, follow-up EP Dimmed In My Display. But it’s also resolute in being so much more than the expected sum of those parts, being much more “Vallens” than we’ve yet realized Vallens could be. And can be. And will be.

In Era is a slow burn, establishing a stately, cathedral-like atmosphere with the opening title track that sustains a mood for the duration described by Phillips as “nocturnal and austere-yet-deprived”. They indulge in some Warpaint-worthy wiggle on “While You Are Still Waiting,” a mild Bergman stalker fantasy on “Ingrid”, a touch of gnawing-but-skittering electro-ooze on “Difference Repeating” and the dour, Portishead-ian creeper “Sheer” along the way.

It isn’t until after the dreamlike false stasis of “Old Flame” that Vallens finally lets you really have it in somewhat expected Vallens style with the all-in feedback pile-on that concludes “Come Home.” But it’s first single “If I Don’t,” which expertly aligns the Vallens you already know with the Vallens of the future, that perhaps most perfectly captures this moment in the band’s evolution.

“All the songs feel special to me,” explains Phillips. Which is not to speak highly of myself, but it’s just a nice feeling to have – to know that I really tried to make this album the most reflective of my current style and taste and musicianship and it’s so rare that you actually get that and I think I achieved that. So I’m just proud of it. I don’t necessarily know that everyone’s gonna resonate with it, but it feels nice to feel strong in your own feelings about it.”

In Era is a transitional album for a band that’s established quite quickly that it intends to remain in transition indefinitely.

“It’s largely about a transitional time in someone’s life where they have ended an era of their life and can see the next one forming but are floating in between two things,” says Phillips. “It was written before COVID times but it weirdly feels even more apt and appropriate now.“It’s about being right in between, right in the limbo of two really large events, and the tenderness and weirdness and sadness and uncertainty and beauty and all of the complicated and vexing feelings that can come with that moment of being in between two things, when you can feel the heaviness of being nowhere. That’s applicable to literally everyone right now, with COVID. So I’m hoping it resonates with people in that regard.”

In Era is out now via Hand Drawn Dracula.

• Featured on Pitchfork Selects - Pitchfork
• “topical, powerful, and wholly invigorating” - Clash Music
• “The music is shoegazey, complex, and textured—don't listen to it because it's cool, listen to it because it's a good song. “ – Vice
• “I’ve fallen in love with Vallens.” - Rookie Mag

Tracklist:

01. In Era

02. While You Are Still Waiting

03. Ingrid

04. Sheer

05. Difference Repeating

06. Old Flame

07. Come Home

08. If I Don’t

09. Opaque Undertow

10. Sin So Vain

01. In Era

02. While You Are Still Waiting

03. Ingrid

04. Sheer

05. Difference Repeating

06. Old Flame

07. Come Home

08. If I Don’t

09. Opaque Undertow

10. Sin So Vain

01. In Era

02. While You Are Still Waiting

03. Ingrid

04. Sheer

05. Difference Repeating

06. Old Flame

07. Come Home

08. If I Don’t

09. Opaque Undertow

10. Sin So Vain