Editor’s Note: Anyone who says there isn’t good music coming out these days — and quite literally, every day — simply isn’t paying attention. Vanyaland’s compilation feature The V List highlights the best in new music over the past month, pulling together the sounds that have soundtracked the website in recent weeks from our wide-ranging series of features. It’s all the stuff we’re bumping here at Vanyaland HQ, one new bop at a time.
BRONCO, ‘Ride Eternal’
There are two types of bands on the road: One that lives and breathes tour life, and one that cannot wait for the ride to be over. BRONCO fall distinctly in the former category, as the doom metal and Southern sludge trio, which formed from the ashes of TOKE, unleash a heavy ode to the road in “Ride Eternal.” The crushing debut single hit the streams in early December, and will be featured on the North Carolina band’s Magnetic Eye Records self-titled debut album, out in February. “The track ‘Ride Eternal’ came from a period of heavy rumination about going from living on tour to forced acceptance of that part of life being over,” states vocalist and bassist Bronco. “It was inspired by classic baroque organ tales like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor and also wanting to do some heavy drone riffing without falling over bored while playing it.” Get in the van below.
Fusilier, ‘Birds’
Fusilier is a name synonymous with the blurring of lines between musical expression and emotional artistry. The project of Atlanta native and New York City creative Blake Fusilier, who once provided the heavy low-end for seismic Boston rock trio RIBS before carefully redefining notions of alternative and R&B, returned with a gripping December track called “Birds.” It plays with the relationship between sounds and spaces, exploring the anxious mind of an artist in the modern day, gradually building in tension and urgency as Fusilier’s falsetto grows to a claustrophobic crescendo as the distant beats and treats he’s so delicately weaved into rhythm begin to eventually close in. The “Birds” at the metaphorical center of Fusilier’s lyrical wordplay often don’t understand the caged surroundings they’ve created until there is no way to fully escape them. “While that specificity might make the song less marketable, it’s the reason why the song is so emotional,” Fusilier says. “It’s probably my most unvarnished accounting of how I feel. It’s really easy to debase yourself when promised everything you’ve ever wanted.” Fly high with Fusilier’s “Birds” below.
CIAO MALZ, ‘Two Feet Tall’
If there was any month on the calendar just piss-soaked in procrastination, it would be December. Tasks are put off, obligations are ignored, and any responsibilities we normally have throughout the year are casually discarded solely in the name of distractive holiday cheer. A reflective look into this practice is what makes CIAO MALZ’s effervescent December indie-pop single “Two Feet Tall,” out via non-binary-owned Audio Antihero Records, all the more relatable. Songwriter Malia DelaCruz takes us through an introspective assessment where all the small things we continuously fail to address begin to build into something emotionally and mentally insurmountable. “Two Feet Tall is about the feeling of losing an inch every day you put off making that call you really need to make,” admits DelaCruz. “It’s the pile of clothes growing bigger and feeling yourself getting smaller. Regardless of the overcompensation, the mountains to hide behind — that unsettling feeling persists. I wanted to evoke the feeling of stagnation while everything else is in motion, so the lead on this track quivers in front of the persistent drums that push the scene along.” Hit the embed below — and do it without haste.
Lynda Mandolyn, ‘I Love How You Love Me’
Over the summer we fell for the retro-pop bliss of Lynda Mandolyn, who took our playlists back to a better vibe with her sugar-sweet rendition of “Little Dreamer” by Some Birthday Girls. Before the year cut out, the Portland artist, known for her work in Tiger Bomb, Crystal Canyon, and others, released “I Love How You Love Me,” a fuzzed-out slow-dance ballad that brings The Paris Sisters’ 1961 girl-group hit into the present day. It’s dedicated to the late Justine Covault and Red on Red Records. “Justine approached me about doing this song as a duet together,” Mandolyn says. “We both shared our love for David Lynch (Angelo Badalamenti) and the early-’60s girl groups. We started sending notes back and forth to each other planning on how we’d like to approach this. The collaboration never came to be. Months after her passing, the message grew louder to me to get people together to see this through and honor her with our version. I took her notes and went into Acadia Studio here in Portland with the finest: Jessica Smith on drums, Kate Bee on synth and Seana Carmody guitar and vocals. Together we made a beautiful version of the song that Justine loved… I felt like levitating after I heard the final mix, there was so much love in that room.”
Tragic Forms, ‘Civil War’
Regardless of your emotions headed into what promises to be a rocket-fueled 2025, covering “Civil War” by Guns N’ Roses is certainly a choice. And what a fucking choice from Tragic Forms, the Texas metal band — composed of Garrett Brooks on guitars and vocals and Taylor Ball on drums — that injects a new kind of urgency and tension to the early-’90s Use Your Illusion classic. Recorded at their own Forms Fortress in Denton, Texas, Tragic Forms’ sky-shattering cover was produced, mixed, and mastered by Justin Osburn. The eight-minute epic dropped in early December, and emerged from the band’s jam sessions between album cycles (hit their Insta for a wide range of covers, jams, and riffage), specifically after the release of last year’s Arms ‘Round The Armistice. This “Civil War” is adrenalized in all the right ways, its calculated faithfulness aligning with some bolder personal touches, and shifts into guitar overdrive as it barrels toward its conclusion. We’ll see if the sentiments of the song take on greater meaning in the year ahead, but what we have here is certainly no failure to communicate.