Back in 2018, Vexes first arrived in the form of an ambitious, articulate self-produced debut in Ancient Geometry. Earning stylistic comparisons to the likes of Deftones, the band, formed from the fracture of previous projects like Vessl and A Life Once Lost, established their footing as a promising prospect in the space of metallic post rock.
The album offered a competent mesh of post-hardcore aggression, post-rock groove and instances of ambient accents that reiterated that Vexes was operating like a band well into their creative stride - well beyond their debut. It makes sense that the band's sophomore effort would exceed expectation, with Vexes setting their return for June 17th with a sprawling double LP stacked with a running time of nearly two hours.
Imagine What We Could Destroy///If Only Given Time underscores the kind of duality that comes standard with Vexes. Embracing a balance of the fragile and the visceral, hope and despair, ambition and apathy, the band's compositional weight has proven to be as complex as their thematic weave. Further expanding on their combination of the heavy and harmonic, Vexes wrangle their post-rock, post-hardcore, and ambient sensibilities into a collection of songs that showcase the band's penchant for layered, lush songwriting - in both concept and execution.
The latest preview of the album in "Low Choices" toes a fine line between melodic and menacing. Clocking in at over five-minutes in duration, the single is a potent amalgam of frantic guitars, a locomotive percussive pace and the melodic vocal lather of Charlie Berezansky - whose performance manages to offer a sense of calm in contrast to the organized chaos of the instrumentation. The track builds to the kind of crescendo that is bound to resonate with post-hardcore pundits and prog-rock purists alike - flexing the instrumental prowess of band still climbing to their creative peak.
The band's guitarist John Klagholz, speaks to the thematic spark that ignites the intensity of the track, "Low Choices is about the give and take we all have within ourselves mentally, trying to cope with everyday issues, and sometimes taking things that might be a minor issue and blowing them out of proportion. Sometimes we struggle to deal with day to day stresses and rationalize our handling of them, and this song is a way of coming to grips with that notion and saying to yourself 'maybe things aren’t great right now, and that’s ok… maybe things won’t get better, and maybe that’s ok too'".
Imagine What We Could Destroy /// If Only Given Time, the sophomore album from Vexes arrives June 17th. Stream the KNOTFEST premiere of "Low Choices" below.
