Arriving alongside news of a sophomore album ‘Fumes’, due for release March 2027 via DIY-mongers Esco Romanesco records, Leeds quartet Vehicle have cheerfully called their new single ‘Miserable Vibes’.
The irony in writing a lyric about a “nostalgia addict going Cold Turkey” to the tune of vintage guitar-pop grizzled in the stomping jangle of the 60s is probably not lost on Vehicle. But I guess that’s all part of their charm: taking familiar, almost ignorably mundane images and displacing them into bizarre new contexts: birthday cards in time machines, notifications from the old world. A line like “I am going to kill you” has hardly sounded less threatening, especially as misery is our weapon of choice.
In fact, more than just purveyors of damn catchy tunes, Michael Cable’s lyrics are a headline act, offering some of the sharpest lines in British underground rock since the Cool Greenhouse. And there’s probably more jokes I’m missing, still.
About the track, Michael adds “…everything floats to the surface, the conclusion is an elusive one. Archive footage floats across the words– our hero doesn’t know what era they’re from anymore, the song is about the strange guilt of living in a present that borrows too heavily from the past. In the end it doesn’t really matter.”
Photo by Dan Commons
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