VANDERLUST
“Vanderlust”
Album Review by Iron Mathew

9/10

Vanderlust are a melodic metal band from Italy formed in 2019, releasing their self titled debut album in 2022.

Describing themselves as “cosmic metal”, Vanderlust unleash their weighty thirteen song debut album featuring lyrical themes of space travel, astronomy, space engineering, and sci-fi adventures. Packed into a fifty minute run time, the band are a blend of traditional metal, thrash nuances, and prog elements – with a sound that reflects such diverse bands as Angra, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Tool. The album is introduced gently with the one minute instrumental intro, ‘Intro’ – a blend of spoken words and an anticipation building background musical landscape, before exploding into life with the high velocity ‘High Hopes’. Travelling at a fast pace, ‘High Hopes’ is an urgent and raucous opener with a massively melodic chorus to hook you in, and keep you hooked, as the album cracks on with the more progressive metaller ‘Orphan Planet’. Adopting a mid tempo, but a nonetheless raucous feel of the previous song, ‘Orphan Planet’ has an emphatically dramatic edge to fill you with nervous tension.

Nervous tension that doesn’t go away either, ‘Forgotten Breed’ more rockier and grungier than either of the two opening songs. As ‘Forgotten Breed’ progresses, it brings heavier hitting moments into the grungy soundscape, attracting the attention of both metal heads and grunge heads. Vanderlust delivering tuneage that seemingly has no boundaries – and definitely not limited to metal! Acoustic guitar leads the way for ‘The Last Ganymedian’, taking on the possible role of a ballad, ’cause I don’t think the mellowness will continue. And damn, I’m right! ‘The Last Ganymedian’ coming to life in a flurry of heavy blows, and foot stamping its way to a conclusion. The variation across the first few songs has been very wide, incorporating styles that sit outside the bands chosen musical genre of metal – but that’s what makes their debut album such a “can’t stop listening” listen. And whoa – where in the universe did Vanderlust get that turn of speed? ‘Scavengers Of Kuiper Belt’ setting a scorching pace as it forages furiously forward at frenetic speed. Yet, there remains a melodious intent that makes ‘Scavengers Of Kuiper Belt’ so fucking infectious.

The two minutes instrumental ‘Mass Effect Destruction’ is a heavy hymn-like crescendo of choir chants and a menacing “they’re coming to get you” feel – leading into the equally menacing ‘Requiem For An Ancient World’. Hitting harder than any song heard previously, ‘Requiem For An Ancient World’ returns the progressive feel of earlier, blending it with a wrecking ball heaviness that shudders the ground, shaking nearby buildings into collapse! Mellowness comes to the fore once more, with ‘3 Sums’ a light and airy stroll – for the first forty-odd seconds at least! And then with a wham and a bam, we’re off an’ punching hard once again, ‘3 Sums’ picking up the urgency and intensity, yet retaining the melodious streak the band have had running through the album since it began. ‘Dyson’s Swarm’ is a heavy hitter of a mid tempo march – a more majestic yet anthemic style of metal rising to the surface, and boiling over to make ‘Dyson’s Swarm’ a fiery hotpot of differing styles.

The one thing this album has had plenty of since it began, is its heavy hitting nature – even when the band advanced into a more mellow realm, the songs managed to make it back to the heavier end of the scale. The (second) instrumental ‘Ringworld’, is a three and a half minute blast of fast paced edge of your seat tension and anticipation – just like so many of the songs on offer, keeping your attention constantly hooked. And to be honest, I’ve not had the slightest inclination to skip a single song – this has been pure entertainment. And it’s not over yet – two more songs to go. The first of which is the bustling ‘Ten Years Back’, with its wonderful mid section breakdown and second half ball busting pace. Vanderlust are firing on all cylinders, hitting the listener with everything they have in their musical arsenal. Bringing the album to a close is the mellower strained ‘Zima Blue’ – the most mellow of all mellow moments ‘Vanderlust’ (the album) has on offer. But by now you should know what to expect from the band – and at two minutes in you get it! The heaviness returns but not the pace, ‘Zima Blue’ staying rooted in the anthemic hymn-like come ballad zone.

Overall, a varied journey of metal and rock, highly infectious and chillingly addictive, Vanderlust’s debut album is impressive.

TRACKLIST

Intro
High Hopes
Orphan Planet
Forgotten Breed
The Last Ganymedian
Scavengers Of Kuper Belt
Mass Effect Destruction
Requiem For An Ancient World
3 Suns
Dyson’s Swarm
Ringworld
Ten Years Back
Zima Blue

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