Instore & Album Launch – VLURE at Rough Trade East

VLURE at Rough Trade East, London, 1st October 2025

It’s been a waiting game holding out for new music from VLURE; a fusion of excitement with the smallest tinge of fear – because seriously, how was it going to get any better than their past catalogue? The drip feed of tracks from debut album Escalate put aside any concerns; early live plays of Feels Like Heaven already easing into the psyche, grime-peppered Something Real adding yet another layer to the band’s genre-defiant stance, and the anthemic Better Days fighting against the broken political landscape currently drenching the country with alacrity, authenticity and a conviction that the world can, and will, be a better place. It’s infectious – I defy you to leave a VLURE gig without some kind of weird ring of contentment wrapping you up like a utopian scarf.

Last night’s album launch at Rough Trade East hit a different level. Billed as a stripped-back electronic set, the songs came with new arrangements and almost impossibly slick transitions between tracks. Simultaneously confrontational and emotional, their total absorption in the music makes for a performance of gargantuan proportions. The rest of the LP’s tracklist hits just as hard. Opener I Want It Euphoric kicks in with the heavy palpitating backbeat of late night clubland, And For A Second will undoubtedly make it into the live favourites list, then the reflective How To Say Goodbye, with its repeated mantra ‘take a breath and hold it’ segues perfectly into the ferocity and poignancy of This Is Not The End.

Escalate is a triumph of belief over superficiality. The wait is worthwhile when the end gift is something that cannot be bettered.