Expectation is a funny thing, in music you crave it through certain bands’ histories in order to hold onto your initial loving memory of them. With debut bands however, the unexpected is what we lust after in order to seize us. Vessels are an unexpected discovery of overwhelming and triumphant sound.

Glasgow PodcART have chosen Vessels as our Artist Of The Week with a view that you should all take a few minutes from your day and listen to the sheer magnificence of this band.

My first introduction to Vessels came from their astounding track ‘Two Words And A Gesture’. With an opening as haunting as a lone boat ploughing through an icy lake at dawn it draws senses as high as they can go. This soundtrack opening of delayed guitars is broken with a train journey of percussion, precise and regular as it picks up all other instruments like passengers. With piano rivulets mimicking frivolous drumming, together they build to one of the most satisfying crescendos I am ever likely to experience in a song. Tom Evans’ vocal sings like an anthem and the passion he displays is at times is paralysing. The pinnacle of this song has a single stringed warning and then you are launched into a passage of frenetic rapture. Not one but two drummer’s battle with distorted guitars and prominent bass lines to produce what is for me melodic muscularity. It is unyielding power of the highest order to the point that it may time out your heart beat.

Their debut album ‘White Fields And Open Devices’ is not only a work of art but sets a bar the height of Everest in terms of accomplishment. It is both flawlessly arranged and intricately pieced together. I have never written this in an article before but I am genuinely pleased with the direction this band have taken their music. In past times of post-rock the imitations of bands such as Mogwai, Sigur Ros and their partners become very characterless after a while. Obviously the presence of vocals in places on this album is a notable difference. Musically however, it really feels as if they have derived further and created something that as I call back to my opening truly unexpected.

Vessels have surprised me in a way that has influenced my thinking and feeling. My only quandary is that my experience of this band has been so virtuous that I am craving them like nothing else.

I was lucky enough to see them live in Edinburgh at the wonderful Sneaky Petes and they did not fail to impress. Prior to seeing them live they were good enough to grant me an interview:

Lee Malcolm: I met Tim about 8 years ago?

Tim Mitchell: Yeah it was 9 or ten years ago, a while ago.

(At this point Pete Wright starts to pretend to snore very loudly while we tried to ignore him)

Lee: We just hung out and talked about music for hours and then we just decided it would be a good idea to start a band. We went through different guises until what we arrived to what we arrived today.

Pete: They will probably tell you they were happiest before I joined

Martin Teff: Yeah Pete joined and ever since it’s been horrible

Tim: Genuinely we love it; Scotland for us is the best crowd.

Pete: People in Scotland are just really friendly

Halina: Not overfriendly?

Pete: No maybe a bit overbearing (he was of course joking)

Pete: Possibly any of the ones playing in Europe, we got to play these big awesome venues. We pulled up in the van in the loading bay and it’s like you come out to fork lift trucks just to load your stuff on the stage

Martin: We played to 400-500 capacity venues with people like Animal Collective so it was special.

Tom Evans: Probably most of it is done by Lee and then we learn the parts. Lee will come up with a lot of the ideas and in rehearsals we get rid of the bits we don’t like. We re-recorded a lot of things till we were happy

Lee: It took us 12 days to record the album

Pete: We set everything down in about 4 days and we just all played together

Martin: We ran out of time mixing and the mixes were done in America while we were in England a lot of things were done over MSN etc.

Pete: It was a great time to reflect and get great comments

Lee: The benefit of doing it overseas was that you could say what you really wanted to say

Tim: Well there was a lot of snow! A lot of walking through snowy fields.

Lee: It was more about the landscape with ‘White Fields’ and then we were using a lot of equipment so it just seemed to fit.

Tim: I thought at one point it was about deserts and aliens?

Lee: Yeah I am quite into my conspiracy theories and artefacts that you find like ceramic batteries and things like that

Pete: One of the working titles was ‘Twazzer’ and we tried to make it semi-intellectual by saying ‘Trois Heures’ but in actual fact it was ‘Twazzer’

Tom: Yeah I had put a demo with a track in it in with our EP’s by mistake and it had ‘Twazzer’ written on it and we did our gig one night and this guy got in touch and said ‘yeah I bought your EP but there’s only one song on it and it’s got ‘Twazzer’ written on it! (Mass Laughter)

Lee: Well we have talked for a while and there are only so many people that hear of you when you are headlining, obviously Oceansize are further on so for us it’s just great to take that next step.

Tim: Give up!

Martin: You will find out fairly quickly if people like your music or not, if they come to your shows etc but if you touch people then it’s good.

Halina: When you say touch people?

Martin: well you know, physically, inappropriately, sexually

Lee: I think people get too focused on being a rock star and they need to ignore this and just live your experiences and write about them through the music

Tim: People may think it’s a really expensive hobby but we make no money at the moment it’s what we love

Tom: We drove to Brighton to play 4 songs for 8 hours and there were other people that drove as well and we forget how amazing that is

Pete: Coming back to what Tim said about giving up and you are sick of it then yeah give up. The other side if you spend your life writing music and playing it you are not living your life so in turn you have nothing to write about. So take a break, do things, build up things. Live your life.

Lee: Identify what it is about your band you love and go with it.

Pete: Also, open your mind to any sound you can get. If you have a band with 2 guitars, bass and drums then it can get boring. Find something like a synth or something to make it more interesting and just make a melting pot!#

I have to thank Vessels for taking the time to speak to me. The next time we will see them live is at King Tuts December 1^st with Oceansize and PodcART championed band And So I Watch You From Afar. I implore you to try and attend this show if you can. It will take you on a different journey and make you realise that the music that these people are making is something that is going to exhilarate you to the point you feel you just ran a marathon.