It's always fun to discover what you think is a great new band but isn't actually new at all. This is the case with Brooklyn dream & power pop band Her Vanished Grace who have been making music for close to twenty years and are just as contemporary now as when they first started.
Married couple Charlie and Nancy Nieland started as a duo in 1987 that played goth and new wave music. Over the years they added new band members to evolve into it's current incarnation which is a mix of alternative rock, dream pop and shoegaze. The band have released twelve albums to date and one of the couple's biggest accomplishments was scoring the Dermot Mulroney/Glen Close movie The Safety of Objects.
Star Crossed is Her Vanished Grace's latest album and features a mix of big hooky pop songs backed by thundering drums and a haze of swirling guitars.
The first single off the album is called Car Crash and reminds one of Brit bands Ride, Lush or even early Blur. The music video for the song has the band playing against a backdrop of psychedelic images which you can watch below.
The second track on the album, Fade Away, is an anthemic duet between Charlie and Nancy that sounds an awful like Joshua Tree era U2, if the Edge used a lot more distorted guitar.
Another favourite track from the album is the song Turn it Over which features Nancy Nieland living out her inner Elizabeth Fraser fantasy. The Cocteau Twins like song is easily the beautifulest of all of the dream pop tracks on the album.
After hearing this album, I am now a big fan of Her Vanished Grace and will be checking out their back catalogue. Not sure why these guys didn't break out like some of their Brooklyn contemporaries but they do deserve a bigger listening audience.
You can stream Star Crossed below via Soundcloud or on Bandcamp which also has the band's back catalogue. You can also buy a physical release of the album over at CD Baby.
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