Velnias: a Moment in the Aether
The Aether.
It is the name of the nameless and the implied form of the formless. It is that which we cannot see or know, but what must be there in order for us to explain that which we do. In the late 1800’s light and gravity were known to be scientific truisms yet impossible to comprehend in their transmissions and ability to exert such incalculable forces upon us over such great distance. Waves of light propagated at such ludicrous speed across the cosmos that surely they reside and vibrate within that great and incomprehensible medium.
Art and visuals by Adam Watts
It was that Aether through which the mysteries of the universe traveled, where the stars rested and where our knowledge crossed the boundary from a world of tangible fact to a universe of unseen mystery. It was both beyond our comprehension, yet also the very foundation upon which our entire conception of existence was founded.
Though easy to think that scientific progress has long-since eclipsed the need for such a concept, still we remain in an Aetherial world, one in which the whims of our thoughts, emotions and energy can flicker across the planet in a glimmer of unseen light, converted from consciousness, heart beats and brain waves into electricity and back again. Humans can be and are moved from across the world, both unpredictably and assuredly.
And it is in that movement where Velnias carves out its home, in the alternating movement of tectonic outcroppings and blanketing snow, echoing through high-altitude forest valleys of their self-professed Rocky Mountain Dirge.
Art and visuals by Adam Watts
Their warm sounds meander and beckon, without modern pretense or the aggression typical of this millennium, and seem to invite us into an alternate time, one familiar yet strangely obscured to us. Long winding riffs remind us of an Orchid-strewn world, haunted by a youthful Opeth, while drifting-fog vocals rouse our imaginations beyond that which has Enslaved us, and instead entreat us to conjure the fire, the Eld, that lies Beyond the Within.
It is an album that feels lost in time, and in so doing, tells us our story of how we too became lost in time. Like us, it has been wrenched from a world of hope and forever reaching for limitless prosperity and communal improvement, now thrust into a fractured realm of isolation, destitution and maniacal corruption.
But it is more than just an album. This album is Velnias’ first full-length since 2012 and has been brewing, draining and re-brewing ever since, having endured a string of band member departures, relocations and other conflicts and curses. Each lineup change was an ending and new beginning, the cycle of spring thaw and bitter frost starting the sprouting process anew, each time the soil a little more damp, a little more broken.
Fast forward to 2020, finally cohesive and thriving again, even amidst yet another lineup change, ready to tour Europe and once again bring their own unique energy into the great musical sphere we all willfully, woefully and joyously inhabit. And it is in that year, a year of importance for so many, from tours to weddings, careers to vacations, the lives of the young and elderly, now turned into another fragment of unreality. One which shines the bright light of Fate on our world, all of the cracks and fragments glistening with hopes and glimmering with death. The world in which the balance of justice fades into the illusion it has always been, with only the vibration of our own aspirations and community to reach through the bottomless Aether of our own humanity and connect us across a world teeming in distance and disease.
‘Scion of Aether’ released 27 March, 2020 on Eisenwald Productions.
Tour Dates:
28.03.2020 – Denver (USA) – HiDive – POSTPONED
10.04.2020 – København (DK) – Pumpehuset – CANCELLED
11.04.2020 – Jena (DE) – Kassablanca – CANCELLED
12.04.2020 – Münster (DE) – Culthe Festival – CANCELLED
13.04.2020 – Manchester (UK) – Satans Hollow – CANCELLED
14.04.2020 – London (UK) – New Cross Inn – CANCELLED
15.04.2020 – Brussel (BE) – Magasin4 – CANCELLED
16.04.2020 – Hamburg (DE) – Kulturpalast – CANCELLED
17.04.2020 – Aarhus (DK) – Royal Metal Fest – CANCELLED
18.04.2020 – Lichtenfels (DE) – Ragnarök Festival – CANCELLED
19.04.2020 – Salzburg (AT) – Rockhouse – CANCELLED
20.04.2020 – Ljubljana (SI) – Orto Bar – CANCELLED
21.04.2020 – Venezia (IT) – Revolver Club – CANCELLED
22.04.2020 – Budapest (HU) – Dürer Kert – CANCELLED
23.04.2020 – Wien (AT) – Viper Room – CANCELLED
24.04.2020 – Karlsruhe (DE) – Dude Fest – CANCELLED
25.04.2020 – Winterthur (CH) – Gaswerk – CANCELLED
27.04.2020 – Nantes (FR) – Le Ferrailleur – CANCELLED
28.04.2020 – Köln (DE) – Club Volta – CANCELLED
29.04.2020 – München (DE) – Backstage – CANCELLED
30.04.2020 – Berlin (DE) – Walpurgisnacht Fest – CANCELLED
01.05.2020 – Rotterdam (NL) – Baroeg – CANCELLED
02.05.2020 – Drachten (NL) – Iduna – CANCELLED
