The world of VOWWS has always been shrouded in mystery and darkness. That’s just the default setting of Australian-born, LA-based duo Matt James (vocals/guitars) and Rizz (vocals/keyboards). It’s how things have always been, it’s how things are, and it’s incredibly likely that that’s how they’ll always be. It should be no surprise, then, that their new album I’ll Fill Your House With An Army is suitably bleak. But don’t confuse that desolate sonic aesthetic for only being inspired by the darker things in life. There have always been glimmers and glimpses of light in their songs, whether on their 2015 full-length debut, The Great Sun or 2018’s Under The World, but the shadows have always been pretty opaque, making it hard for that light to break through. It struggles on this record, too. At the same time, however, it seems to flicker a bit brighter, and for a little longer.

“We definitely look at all the dark things in life and the world,” admits Matt. “I consider it my job to take a pretty unfiltered view of what's happening in the world, and then that goes through us and our filter, and comes back out as what whatever the music is. Lyrically, we tend not to say anything literally – there’s more of a surrealist and subversive element to it – so the world definitely looks like there's something wrong with it throughout our music and our worldview, but there's also definitely a beauty and an optimism in there as well. We try and find beauty in a lot of things, and try to present that in the framework of a broken world – whether that's an internal one or an external one.”

That conflation of internal and external worlds is what has always given VOWWS their unique and distinctive edge. Because rather than staring into the abyss, they’re already in it, staring outwards, waiting for the doom to catch up to them rather than trying to avoid it. That combination of harrowing, heartfelt and hopeful – all three dancing seductively with each other – has garnered the duo plenty of attention since their inception. Early single “Losing Myself In You” featured, and was co-written with, nu-wave legend Gary Numan, a remix of Under The World’s “Structure Of Love” featured guest vocals from Deftones’ Chino Moreno, and 2022 single “WAIT” saw Chelsea Wolfe add her voice to the mix. Korn, A Perfect Circle and Billy Corgan also count themselves as fans, and the pair headed our with Alice In Chains founder and guitarist Jerry Cantrell on a UK and European tour.

It’s an exciting flurry of activity that comes after what James admits was a “painful” period of time following the release of that second album. Because not too long after its release, of course, the world came to a standstill. As it did for most people – as well as most bands – it had a profound effect on VOWWS. Not only did the band not play any shows for two years – “Our first show back was with Deftones on the tour with them,” remembers Matt, “and I was terrified, because I just thought ‘I can't be sure that I can actually do this anymore.’” – but the extended period of time off caused them to reshape and rethink the new music they’d been working on. By 2022 they had made a full 20-track record, but they weren’t happy with it, so went back to the drawing board.

“Rizz is like the canary in the coalmine for us,” explains Matt. “She can't kid herself into feeling good about something she doesn't feel good about, whereas I can. So, frustratingly for me, she was like 'This isn't good enough.' I wanted to just mix it a bit more and paper over the cracks, but she was like 'No, it's already been this long, it doesn't matter if it takes a bit longer.'”

And so the band enlisted the help of A Perfect Circle’s Billy Howerdel, and they started crafting what would eventually become I’ll Fill Your House With An Army. Rizz was right. From the moment the album begins with the dour insistent march of “Blood’s On Fire”, it’s clear that it was well worth the extra time. The song – which features Josh Freese behind the drum kit – is a tug of war between lightness and darkness, Rizz and Matt’s vocals pulling each other both further into that void while also trying to not get swallowed whole by it. That conflict rages across the record’s 11 tracks, whether that’s on the gloomy, creepy snarl of “SHUDDER” (which, along with “Silhouette” and “Re-Animator”, also has Freese on drums, and features Korn guitarist James ‘Munky’ Shaffer), the stark, ice-cold emotion of “Pulls Me Apart” or the tender, dreamy tumble of “Hurt You”. Despite the push and pull nature of these songs, though, those extremes exist within each other, forever entwined, never quite separate. Listen, for instance, to how “Re-Animator” soars in its second half as it attempts to escape itself, to how “Casualty” flits between intense, Vantablack grooves and sun-filled ethereal soundscapes, to how the haunted love of “I Never Left” – possibly the most vulnerable, tender song the band have ever committed to tape – swerves between eerie and soothing, beautiful and barren, demonic and sweet.

That VOWWS did decide, in the end, to take their time with this album, only ended up serving them – and the record – incredibly well. Though racked with self-doubt and uncertainty about everything, the pair pushed through the darkness and emerged if not entirely in the light, then at least with it glowing in the distance. Of course, it wouldn’t be VOWWS if it remained within reach, and as “Waterline” – an unsettling, demonic slow dance of a finale – comes to an end, it fades gently but powerfully, trapping the listener in the void, proving that the hard work and the long slog and battle against themselves were all worth it, and ultimately resulted in a better record.

“We're proud of ourselves for getting there – and having the faith to get there in the end,” says Matt, “because there was a lot of doubt. But pushing through that doubt was fully part of the process. We both just care about this more than anything else, because we think it's important. We think it's something special and we want to share it with the world. But we also want to create a world that people can't get anywhere else, and bring them into it – and lose ourselves in it, too. It's kind of holistic if you do it right, I think.”

One listen to I’ll Fill Your House With An Army and it’s clear that VOWWS have, indeed, done it right. One listen and you’re immediately drawn into their world, left gasping for air, left overwhelmed by its force. And though you probably know you should escape, you’re also very happy being lost there, letting your eyes adjust to those brief, bright moments of light, because you finally realise that it’s your world, too, and there’s so much comfort in that.

Carpenter Brut @ University of Wolverhampton at Wulfrun Hall

Flytjendur