VIBRACOBRA
Interviews

Saint-Petersburg power post rockers VIBRACOBRA discuss creative amalgam of styles on their debut album “The Box”

5 mins read

After numerous changes, the final line up of VIBRACOBRA, an instrumental post-rock band from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, was finally established in the end of 2016. Since then, the three-piece have played several shows in their home town and released the first single. In 2020 the band has announced the release of the debut album which is entitled β€œThe Box”, which explores various musical landscapes in a wordless way. The release is composed of 6 tracks that are hard to describe by adding just one default tag, which we tried to unlock by asking the band about more details behind this dynamic release. Coming as an explosive and multi-faceted offering, the record showcases exactly what we love about the post-rock genre and unveils a great new band that will hopefully go on to expand, diversify, and break new ground.

Most likely, this solid piece of work falls under the post-rock genre, however, heavy yet catchy melodic parts, as well as elements of metal/prog/math rock music, will change your perception during the listening of this ~ 35 min. record. Each track is full of relatively calm melodies that unavoidably evolve into bursts of aggressive lines that reach its apogee towards the end.

The band experiments with different musical measures, exploits elements of different genres while still preserving their own style. The results of the work were carefully picked out, sorted and packed in one little β€œBox” that is aimed to pull you out of the reality and immerse into the inner world. So, if you have suddenly found yourself feeling tired of words, choruses, verses, thoughts of other people, then you might want to open this β€œBox” and check what’s in there personally for you.

Asked about more background on their story, the band offered: “We have formed in 2016 during the New Year party at our common friends house. I’ve met our bass player and we talked about the music for a while. At that point his previous band where he played pop-rock has faced difficulties and eventually split.

I didn’t play the guitar in any band before Vibracobra, however, we have decided to meet and jam. At the initial stage, we had two different drummers and spent one year just making tunes in the rehearsal space, but at some point we were never satisfied with the drum lines. Finding a good drummer is not an easy task, but eventually we have found a drummer who has agreed to try and from the day 1 everything seemed to sound just right.

VIBRACOBRA

We have played some shows and started recording our debut album. Definitely, it could have been released earlier but we had to learn the recording process from scratch. It is quite amazing that nowadays you can record your music almost without the help of professional studio and still sound good, however the drums have been recorded in studio, the rest was done by ourselves except for the mixing which has been done by MARSOV SOUND. The final result has exceeded our expectations.

π‘‡β„Žπ‘’ 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑙𝑒 π‘œπ‘“ π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘‘ 𝑖𝑠 π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘“π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘›π‘π‘’ π‘‘π‘œ π·π‘Žπ‘£π‘–π‘‘ πΏπ‘¦π‘›π‘β„Žβ€™π‘  π‘€π‘’π‘™β„Žπ‘œπ‘™π‘™π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π·π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘£π‘’ π‘šπ‘œπ‘£π‘–π‘’, π‘€β„Žπ‘’π‘Ÿπ‘’ π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑒 π‘π‘œπ‘₯ π‘ π‘¦π‘šπ‘π‘œπ‘™π‘–π‘§π‘’π‘  π‘Ž π‘π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘‘π‘”π‘’ 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝑀𝑒𝑒𝑛 π‘‘π‘€π‘œ π‘€π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘™π‘‘π‘ : π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘Žπ‘™ π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘£π‘–π‘ π‘–π‘œπ‘›π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘¦.

The track titles aren’t arranged by coincidence, during the listening you are slowly moving from the top β€œAugue” (Fireball in Latin) and β€œHelicopters” up in the air, down to β€œSacre Bleu” that rests under the waters of β€œCousteau”. Deep down there is the bottom of the Box which seems like a dark place to be. Thus, we wanted this β€œBox” to pull you out of the reality and immerse into its/your inner world.

VIBRACOBRA

π‘ƒπ‘™π‘Žπ‘›π‘  π‘“π‘œπ‘Ÿ π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘ π‘‘ π‘œπ‘“ π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π‘¦π‘’π‘Žπ‘Ÿ π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘’ π‘ π‘–π‘šπ‘π‘™π‘’ π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘œπ‘π‘£π‘–π‘œπ‘’π‘ : 𝑔𝑒𝑑 π‘π‘Žπ‘π‘˜ π‘‘π‘œ π‘›π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘šπ‘Žπ‘™ 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 π‘Žπ‘“π‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿ 𝐢𝑂𝑉𝐼𝐷 π‘π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘π‘’π‘šπ‘–π‘, π‘π‘™π‘Žπ‘¦ π‘ π‘œπ‘šπ‘’ π‘ β„Žπ‘œπ‘€π‘  π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘šπ‘Žπ‘˜π‘’ 𝑛𝑒𝑀 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠.

At the moment we already have some material which will be released on our next record. Making new songs is a bit of a challenge as we expect them to sound new and not to be repetitive. We experiment with different musical measures, exploit elements of different genres in order to get fresh ideas. Moreover, it is now becoming obvious that the duration of our songs increases as it is simply impossible to put everything in 5-6 minutes, now we are moving towards 8-10 minutes, though nowadays trends show that the most popular duration is 2:30 minutes. Anyway, we are not making music to be in the mainstream but rather to make songs that we would be pleased to listen to if they were composed by some other band. I guess this is the main criteria that we follow.

π‘‚π‘’π‘Ÿ π‘™π‘œπ‘π‘Žπ‘™ π‘’π‘›π‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘”π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘’π‘›π‘‘ 𝑠𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑒 π‘ π‘’π‘’π‘šπ‘  π‘‘π‘œ 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛 π‘”π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘Žπ‘‘ π‘π‘œπ‘›π‘‘π‘–π‘‘π‘–π‘œπ‘› π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑦 β„Žπ‘Žπ‘  π‘ π‘œπ‘šπ‘’π‘‘β„Žπ‘–π‘›π‘” π‘‘π‘œ π‘œπ‘“π‘“π‘’π‘Ÿ π‘“π‘œπ‘Ÿ π‘’π‘Žπ‘β„Ž π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘’π‘£π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘¦π‘œπ‘›π‘’ 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 π‘œπ‘› π‘¦π‘œπ‘’π‘Ÿ π‘šπ‘’π‘ π‘–π‘ π‘‘π‘Žπ‘ π‘’.

For example, bands like Vy Pole, Jaunt, Too Far East is West, Uniquetunes make/made some great instrumental music. However, our influences are not limited to instrumental music and it’s quite hard to short the list of bands that we like, just to name a few: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Nirvana, Gallows, Korn, Squarepusher, Maybeshewill, Sonic Youth, Aphex Twin, Materic, Trash Talk, Metz, Π₯ΠΈΠΌΠ΅Ρ€Π°, Sepultura, Prodigy, Queenadreena, Aloke, Deftones, Lamb or Nine Inch Nails… This list can be endless and everything affects us in some way, thus it reflects our music, but to be honest none of the above mentioned bands could be considered as a main lighthouse on our musical way.”

π‘Šπ‘’ π‘ π‘–π‘šπ‘π‘™π‘¦ π‘™π‘œπ‘£π‘’ π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π‘šπ‘’π‘ π‘–π‘ π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘‘π‘Žπ‘˜π‘’ π‘€β„Žπ‘Žπ‘‘π‘’π‘£π‘’π‘Ÿ 𝑖𝑑 π‘π‘Žπ‘› π‘œπ‘“π‘“π‘’π‘Ÿ 𝑖𝑛 π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿ π‘‘π‘œ π‘π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘Žπ‘‘π‘’ π‘ π‘œπ‘šπ‘’π‘‘β„Žπ‘–π‘›π‘” π‘œπ‘“ π‘œπ‘’π‘Ÿ π‘œπ‘€π‘›.

VIBRACOBRA by Nastya Nikolaeva
VIBRACOBRA by Nastya Nikolaeva

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Karol KamiΕ„ski

DIY rock music enthusiast and web-zine publisher from Warsaw, Poland. Supporting DIY ethics, local artists and promoting hardcore punk, rock, post rock and alternative music of all kinds via IDIOTEQ online channels.
Contact via [email protected]

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