We've been looking forward to hearing more about 'Verandan' for a while now, as they were mentioned by Rami Vierula when we interviewed him in conjunction with the (excellent) Delay Trees album release. And we'd also spotted Nick Triani from the Soliti label mentioning them in an interview also, which gave a pretty big clue that they were likely to end up as part of Soliti's ever growing family of bands and artists. So we're delighted to finally introduce Verandan to you now along with their debut track 'Gold in the Hills'.
The lead behind Varandan is Ville Hopponen (Cats on Fire / The New Tigers), and inevitably he's gathered a group of Finnish musicians around him from bands that have close connections to Soliti, and that we've featured in NMR previously, such as Black Twig, Puunhalaaja, Sofa Pets and Love Sport - and we still hope to write a belated album review of them sometime.
Anyway, Verandan's music has come as a surprise, I have no idea quite what I was expecting, but this is isn't classic indie guitar based music, it seems to blend together influences from across the decades, with a particular nod towards 80's indie. But this is also expansive sophisticated songwriting with some lovely subtle touches from the musicians, and even the big guitar solo which concludes the track seems to work pretty well too. I really like it and am intrigued as to how future releases might sound, and what direction this music might go in.
So the plans for Verandan involve an EP release in the Autumn, and in the meantime they'll be playing live at the Teurastamo Helsinki on the 18th August.
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