Vague Lanes :: Divergence And Declaration (Viasonde / Swiss Dark Nights)

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The second coming of Vague Lanes (aka Mike Cadoo and Badger McInnes) comes as a moody, dark, and also insanely catchy collection of darkwave tunes. The group nails the one thing I always appreciate when listening to music: the foundations. If your grooves aren’t solid, there’s a good chance the music is going to fall flat.

Solid foundations

The second coming of Vague Lanes (aka Mike Cadoo and Badger McInnes) comes as a moody, dark, and also insanely catchy collection of darkwave tunes. The group nails the one thing I always appreciate when listening to music: the foundations. If your grooves aren’t solid, there’s a good chance the music is going to fall flat.

Thankfully for me, there’s not one but two basses on this LP, and both fulfill their purpose very well; they may be two, but one does end up playing the role of the guitar, so much so that you could trick almost anyone by telling them it was an actual guitar, and they would blindly trust you. On the other hand, McInnes seems to be having lots of fun displaying post-punk throttles and moody slow basslines à la Simon Gullup; his contributions to this record are simply exquisite, so much so that for me he ends up being both the backbone and the forefront of almost every track, providing a stable bassline for the rest of the song to go along with and melodies so memorable they might as well be the songs’ hook.

Vague Lanes — East Bay machine driven dual-bass post-punk duo featuring Mike Cadoo (Gridlock, Bitcrush) and Badger McInnes (Here We Burn, After the Apex). ~vaguelanes.com

That is instantly apparent in “By Dusk,” which I have been humming non-stop for the past few days. That’s likely because the bassline offers no more than a few notes and is pretty repetitive, but in that repetition there’s such a sweet chord progression; the fact that it’s rather predictable is what allows it to be so damn memorable, as you’re likely to follow along even if you’re tone deaf. The song also seems to be aware of how great it is instrumentally, as its intro builds for more than two minutes before the vocals join, with Cadoo providing wonderful atmospheric leads.

Then follows “Cellophane,” another of the most memorable, mainly because of the synthesizer this time around. McInnes makes a comeback shortly after, with “Unraveling” being centered around a rather fast throbbing groove. So far, three songs in, and each one has its own distinct identity—something I really love in records. It keeps them from trying to be memorable just by being catchy.

Reverb echoes strongly ::

The album then strikes with its absolute best cut, “Eight Winters.” If you wanted to act a bit like a jester today, you could fool the same person twice by telling them this song came out forty years ago, and they’d fall for it like they fell for the guitar lie. The track is massive, as the reverb echoes strongly; it does so throughout most of the record, but with the main bassline and the drums being as slow as they’re here, each note has huge amounts of room to breathe, allowing each snare snap and bass thump to fully seep into the song. Its intro alone is so chilling that the track could have been just six and a half minutes of that, but Vague Lanes alternate parts to make sure that when that bassline comes back it sounds as fresh as it did initially.

The opening “Heptahedron” is also a unique piece, as it’s one of the few where the vocals seem to be the highlight. The instrumentation is really straightforward and repetitive, allowing for more spotlight on the words. The mastering and mixing of this one are also noticeably different, as the low end seems toned down quite a bit; it’s pretty noticeable when “By Dusk” starts right after, with this huge bold bass that makes the song sound much fuller by comparison.

The only part of the record that feels a bit less impactful is its final segment, where the last three tracks, while still solid and memorable, don’t stand out as much individually. They maintain the album’s high standard—there isn’t a single underwhelming moment here—but they don’t quite manage to surprise me, feeling somewhat reminiscent of earlier tracks. “Exo” still ranks among the stronger tracks—perhaps because it follows closely in the footsteps of “Eight Winters'” formula—but I can’t say I mind.

And to wrap it up, I really only have praise for this record. It’s a strong effort, and I’m confident the group can surpass it in the future—they clearly have a talent for crafting fantastic tracks. Each bassline is seriously enveloping, and the non-bassline bass adds a wonderful atmosphere to the whole deal. I will be sitting near if not directly in the front row for the next one.