Soaked in the bright psychedelia of the 1960s and dipped in the indie rock explosion of the new millennium, The Velveteins are best described as a bridge between the two. Inspired after living out of a camper van on the beaches of Australia for a year, frontman Spencer Morphy returned to Canada and started the band with co-songwriter Addison Hiller in 2014. Later joined by Dean Kheroufi, Daniel Sedmak, and Cam O’Neill, the fivesome have since made a name for themselves for their incendiary live performances. Their collection of records through the years captures youthful energy and experimentation with surf-tinged indie guitar pop.
Declarations of the 3am Freeway is the sophomore full-length from the band. Inspired by dusk, while driving in a battered motor vehicle on the cusp of a great adventure, the album is backdropped with moody synths and sizzling warbled guitars. The lyrics are moody, yearning, and more insightful than their past works such as Slow Wave and A Hot Second. That longing sentiment is relayed perfectly on the title track, “It all begins right now / it all begins in the car on the freeway.” The focus track “See the Ground” is a poppy guitar track about friends who have bad habits and the experience of watching them lose perspective and spiral into their own universe. The sentiment is expressed in the lyric, “..when you’d go down, you can barely see the ground.”
The album took five years to write, as the band took charge of production and left their Canadian label. The songs were recorded, and then re-recorded multiple times in a plethora of different recording studios, each song chiseled out from its unsophisticated inception to form a more defined pearly essence.
Garnering millions of streams for their music to date, The Velveteins have built an ever-growing, dedicated fan base across all corners of the globe. Their vigorous touring schedule has led to international festival appearances (SXSW, and The Great Escape) and opening slots for established acts including Wolf Parade, Hockey Dad, and Chad Vangaalen.
For further information on the band, visit the following links:
- https://www.instagram.com/thevelveteins/
- https://www.facebook.com/TheVelveteins
- https://twitter.com/thevelveteins
Photo by: Evangeline Belzile/ source LPR
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