Wow, it’s been 5 years since we featured VAST ROBOT ARMIES and their “Little Creatures” album, and even though we somehow missed their 2017 LP “Dinner Music“, we’re back to give them credit, appreciate their spacey work and mesmerize you with their new single “More In Than Out”! Arriving with an intriguing pedigree, and crafted by full-grown wizards, the new offering covers quite a broad aural spectrum and has this spark and atmospheric energy proving that we are very lucky to have them back.
VAST ROBOT ARMIES‘ earlier material featured production, performance and other contributions from all three members of The Life and Times, and this new record features drums by Kelli Scott of Failure, as well as guest vocals by Ken Stringfellow (The Posies) and production by Jordon Zadorozny (Blinker The Star, also a co-songwriter for Courtney Love). The band’s new album “Paper Crown Parade” releases on March 31st via Dome A Records.
The song More In Than Out – was the last song written/demoed for the record. It quite literally came from Thomson sitting down, listening to the demos and saying “this record needs an opener” Feeling great about the batch of demos, he felt there was still that album opener missing. So he sat down and put together what he felt was an atmospheric but relentless “album opener”. Simple in its essence, but playing off when it needs to.
The lyrics were crafted by both Agee and Thomson sending ideas back and forth during the demoing phase. Thomson had the chorus in mind, while Agee had the verses. So when they recorded it, that was the approach, with Agee singing lead on the verses, and it switching over to Thomson for the choruses.
As far as the lyrics, they were written based around the observations of general evolution of conversations, especially when framed around the basis of debating or confrontational perspectives, has become less about strong facts and more about the concepts that suit the shallowest parts of any given narrative. In that, more often than not (especially in a social/online way)the human species seems to be devolving into a collective that neglects to read as many facts and perspectives, so that they are truly informed, and as a result throughout the basic, surface level concepts and figure “that’s good enough to make my point…” And walk away not considering, that by not covering/considering all the angles possible, it creates a misinformation loop.
Recorded over the summer of 2019. Kellii Scott (of the band Failure) recorded all the drums at Akira Studio June-Aug. After that John and Joe flew in from Kansas City, Missouri and met Jason. They drove up to Pembroke, Ontario and recorded the rest of the record with Jordon Zadorozny at Skylark Park Studios Aug 31-Sept 10th
Lyrics:
“Write your lines.
Wrap-’em up in a ribbon, and walk away.
Brains and mouths, coexist on a very different page.
Just play your part upon the stage.Chorus
You’re more right than wrong, that’s good enough to today.
You’re more in than out, and that’s far enough away.Speak of light running out of time and led astray.
What’s on your mind? You better make it news, right away.
These eyes can see, it’s clearly not a mystery.
Just play your part upon the stage.Chorus
You’re more right than wrong, that’s good enough to today.
You’re more in than out, and that’s far enough away.Chorus
You’re more right than wrong, that’s good enough to today.
You’re more in than out, and that’s far enough away.”
The band began in 2012-13, when Jason Thomson left his previous band of 13 years (sometimes why), where he was the drummer and lead vocalist. Wanting to branch off and attempt something that is sonically different and play more of the melodic instruments (guitars, bass and synths) he basically, one-man-banned the debut album ‘Goodnight Myopia’ (Feb 2013). Though very pleased with the end result and reaction, He missed the camaraderie and broader input that comes from having a full band. As it would work out, he ended up in an online conversation with John Agee (Sundiver). In a nice bit of symmetry, they had discovered each other’s projects/bands within the same month through happenstance. Jason reached out to John to tell him how impressed he was with Sundiver’s debut album (The Pull), and as it turns out the week before, John Agee had been turned onto Vast Robot Armies debut (Goodnight Myopia). The conversation quickly turned to a possible collaboration. Jason sent John a demo of some new songs. Within a couple days, John had learned then And broached the idea of recruiting Joseph Wells. The other guitarist from Sundiver. At that point it was decided that the 3 would work on the entire album Jason Thomson had been developing.
The 3 met up in Chicago about 8 months later and went into the studio with Thomson’s long-time producer’s, Allen Epley & Eric Abert from the bands Shiner & The Life and Times. They recruited Chris Metcalf (The Life and Times drummer) to play all the drums one the record. Vast Robot Armies follow-up, entitled ‘Little Creatures’ (Mar 2015), marked a decidedly robust turn for the better and a logical step forward. With a fuller sound and strong chemistry, the album surpassed the success of they debut.
Taking a bit of time to focus on their other projects (Doris and Sundiver), Thomson spent the next year writing 20 demos for a follow up record to ‘Little Creatures’. In the spring of 2016, the 3 began to remotely work on those demos together. Veering into a more streamlined direction band again met top in Chicago and recorded the album ‘Dinner Music’ in the summer of 2016, with Allen Epley & Eric Abert at the helm. Again enlisting Chris Metcalf on drums.
After the release of Dinner Music (June 2017), Thomson took some time-off to spend with his newborn son. Spending the quiet hours after his house went to bed to write some random demos and ideas. Before he knew it, he was sitting on 16 demos. He reached out to his bandmates and they decided it was time to begin working on their next album together. This time, they decided to switch everything up. This involved taking a longer time crafting the demos and being merciless with decisions. To challenge themselves further they decided to break away from their long-time studio producers in Chicago and travel to Thomson’s home base of Canada and record with Jordon Zadorozny (Blinker the Star) in Pembroke, Ontario. Another big change was Thomson reached out to Failure drummer, Kellii Scott to see if he would be interested in handling the drum duties for this next record. They had been chatting back and forth since Dinner Music’s release about this being a possibility. Scott agreed to handle the albums drums.
They recorded the album during the Summer of 2019. With Kellii Scott remotely crafting all the drum tracks in LA, as Zadorozny and Thomson worked with him to price it all together. Then later that summer, Agee and Wells flew into Toronto and met up with Thomson and together they trekked to northern Ontario and recorded the rest of the album at Zadorozny’s studios (Skylark park).
Because of the volume of songs written, Thomson is planning on returning to Skylark Park in the spring to finish off 3-4 more songs from the sessions to release as an EP.
