Vassals is a Brooklyn-based trio consisting of Cassette Spence (vocals/bass), Jon Smith (drums) and Jeff Fettig (guitar). Together they produce music that marries slacker and noise rock into a happy medium, the refusal to settle into any clear binary allowing the band to find further artistic depths while maintaining a distinctive personality and sound.
After releasing their debut record In My Dreams I Am A Sailor back in 2012 and the ironic holiday EP Here We Come a Vassaling in 2015, 2017 saw the release of Halogen Days EP. The latter was the first glimpse of Vassals’ live performance style on record, and felt like the first signs of a band finding their true manifestation.
Taken from a forthcoming full-length, Demarcation Lines, new single ‘Lil Anvil’ sees Vassals lean further into this natural state, as though, having pushed through a period of experimentation and soul searching, they have emerged in their true form. Full of punch and backed by an insistent rhythm, the single’s confident sound supports this idea, though the lyrics question the rigidity of a linear journey. “I am a being of constant motion,” goes Spence’s repeated mantra, and as the tracks clatters into an increasingly hypnotic cadence, the concept of reaching one’s destination seems unimportant. Why park at any one point when motion is so much fun?
i drew a line
i drew it nice and deep
through my mind through my lips through my teeth
never mind now how my tarot reads
all’s a queen of swords
all is in reverse
all’s a fading dreami am a being of constant motion
i am a being of whatever
forever