Review | The Vanderbuilts, Far from Here

The Vanderbuilts, Far from Here
May 3, Self-released
Highly recommended

The Vanderbuilts played their first Syracuse University set at a Battle of the Bands. They won the night by way of enthusiastic folk-rock numbers and classic country instrumentation. Applause filled the dark Schine Underground as they finished, and all three judges expressed deep respect for The Vanderbuilts' foot-stomping showmanship.

In light of that debut, it's hard to imagine why the band's first EP sounds so quiet.

The Vanderbuilts dialed it down on Far from Here, an ambitious, many-nuanced concept album whose slow,

delicate songs run together both instrumentally and thematically. Far from Here aspires not to the sing-along folk-rock that first got The Vanderbuilts notice at SU, but to something higher, maybe even smarter. These aren't songs as much as they are a suite. They work best as they've been given us: in order, at once, without distractions.

The EP's flowing medley tells the story of societal disintegration, starting with an instrumental and ending with a full-length ballad. With the exception of "Far from Here," the songs are short and unimpeachably sweet, none of them popping past three minutes. On each, the lyrics wrap around serious subjects like environmentalism, the death of modern civilization, and the

individual and collective responses to it.

It's heavy material for a college demographic, but frontman Sam Kogon and the rest of the band never waste an opportunity to wax apocalyptic. In fact, The Vanderbuilts fixate on themes of change, destruction, and uncertainty. The SUNY-ESF students show their environmental roots on "Tinfoil," which mourns a dystopia without stars or oil. The rawer-rocking song resounds with trebly guitars and lines like "No more light, no more oil / Makes these cars as good as tinfoil." Kogon's warbling vocals and Aya Yamamoto's affective fiddling bear a resemblance to Sufjan Stevens' early work — spooky, foreboding and eerily evocative, full of regrets and ghosts.

That eeriness also appears on "Ship

of Ghosts," a mumbling, Wilco-esque number about a historical shipwreck — or a metaphor for the end of the world, as Kogon explained in an email. It's there again on album midpoint "Hold Your Hand," which shuffles around predominant guitars, Yamamoto's violin and a textured organ. "We are a collection of imperfections," Kogon says of humanity. "So even with the end of the world, all I still want to do is hold your hand."

But The Vanderbuilts are at their most foreboding and most powerful on closing ballad "Far From Here." On that track, we get characters with names and narratives that could have been lifted from Springsteen or Dylan. By the end, Kogon sings pressingly about setting broken institutions ablaze; his thin

voice stretches desperately over lyrics on love and rapture. Through drum breakdowns, guitar solos, and banjo and bass lines, they achieve a catharsis as effective as earlier favorites like "I'm Coming Home." But unlike "I'm Coming Home" and other numbers from The Vanderbuilts' Battle of the Band days, "Far from Here" sounds older, larger and less naive: the band isn't returning to a familiar place, but setting out for an unknown and possibly dangerous one.

It's curious that a group of 20-year-olds chose the apocalypse as a theme, especially on a sweet, meditative album like Far from Here. But at its core, the EP speaks less about tragedy, sweeping metaphor, or society, and more about how The Vanderbuilts' characters

confront all three. It's as much about the end of one world as it is about the beginning of a new one. In that way, this bittersweet first outing could only come from a young band: Far from Here narrates the end of an era, and college kids growing up can't help but feel the sting.