New Music – VLURE – Breaking Glass Magazine

VLURE – Cut It

I’ve been grappling with writing something about music and grief. When I lost someone close in December, I astutely avoided listening to any of my favourite songs in the fear that they’d forever be associated with that point in time where it felt like I was watching life go by from a distance, detached from the world of Christmas shoppers and giant inflatable snowmen looming ominously over hedges. The first week in the new year brought a long since booked trip to Rockaway Beach. A slightly surreal but welcome distraction, it felt good to see live music again, even if my heart wasn’t really in it. I knew the set of the weekend would belong to VLURE, but wasn’t prepared for the absolute battering back to reality it would bring – sometimes you don’t know you’ve been feeling nothing until you feel something. There are only a handful of artists that fall into this category for me, but there’s no doubt that VLURE join the elite few whose music stops me in my tracks and allows that total escape from everything else.

When they play live, there’s a ferocity that can’t be ignored. No half-hearted measures, they put everything they have into their performance – you don’t watch VLURE, you let yourself be engulfed by what they do, it’s immersive and emotional. And it’s heartening to see the direction their new music is taking, away from the mass of soundalike post-punk bands to unashamedly incorporate the fearlessly heavy beats of the best of electronic dance. New single Cut It, released at midnight, is the epitome of this. Already a firm favourite at their recent gigs, the recorded version is perfectly produced to replicate the exhilaration of a nocturnal anthem sending shockwaves through the early hours of clubland. “Do you see what I see, do you feel what I feel?” fast becoming a rhetorical lyric, as the ever growing pool of familiar faces in the crowd clearly do feel it to the core. Despite the confrontational exterior, there’s something intrinsically beautiful about this song, a wave of nostalgia firmly kicked into place amongst early contenders for track of the year.

So here’s the thing – sometimes life’s a bit shit but on it goes regardless and the best you can do is embrace it, let good things happen, and don’t hide from the music that makes it feel better, it’ll find you anyway and might be just what you need to see through the mist. And if you haven’t already, don’t waste any time in getting onto this band, you’re really missing something very special. Now let’s get 2023 started.