Rockshots Records is proud to announce their signing of cosmic metallers VANDERLUST (ft. members of S91, Dreal) for the release of their self-titled debut.
Birthed to travel the cosmos, Italy’s Vanderlust is a power-heavy metal band with prog-thrash influences that tells tales of space travels, astronomy, space engineering, and sci-fi adventures.
“We tried to mix a prog-thrashy riffing in the roots of Megadeth, Vektor and Tool with epic vocal parts like Iron Maiden, Helloween, Angra, and Lione’s Rhapsody. We also put sci-fi elements in our songs, so you can hear also something from Voivod.” adds the band.
This debut recording is like a stellar system with 12 different planets. The star at the center of the system represents the heavy-power metal around all the songs revolving. Despite all the tracks being irradiated by the same light, they are all different from each other. Vanderlust has fast thrash, slow and doom, shiny and brilliant to grunge, and darker songs. Like planets, which appear like simple small bright spots, but in reality, are all big worlds, Vanderlust’s songs are more complex than they sound at first listen. In fact, you can easily sing along to some of the choruses even if there are complex riffs in the background. Vanderlust is particularly proud of the participation of opera singer Letizia Cappellini who does vocals on select tracks and helps the band further expand the vocal register of their compositions. The band also adds the presence of synths and electronic elements to the compositions to set the sci-fi mood of the lyrics.
“The main goal was to start a metal band that could be an inspiration for young people, a band that could tell them stories from the future when mankind will have overcome its limits and the solar system will be an entire human colony. This idea came to mind to founding members Francesco and Santo when they began their search for other members that could fit. Drummer Giacomo Mezzetti joined the space odyssey right before the covid-19 outbreak. Vocalist Riccardo Morello joined the band during the first lockdown in Italy, so the first song was entirely composed online, using videocalls and file sharing.” adds the band.
Today, the band unveils their first single “Scavengers of Kuiper Belt“, which they explain its story in further detail: “In the Vanderlust Universe, The Scavengers are the employees of a large corporation that operates on many planets and colonies throughout the solar system. Their story begins in the 21st century when their main task was to capture all the space debris in Earth’s orbit. Due to the particular business organization and the bizarre recruiting rules, the company turned into a sort of tribe during the centuries. The importance of the Scavengers got bigger and bigger and, at the time of our story, they perform several important tasks, including fathoming the Kuiper belt in search of Ices (large orbiting frozen objects from which extract energy and precious materials). The main characters of our story are two scavengers during a typical working day. To alleviate the boredom of the day they decide to start a competition to find the most profitable Ice in the shortest time. But suddenly, here’s something they’ve never seen… A really strange object, a very precious object… very precious… can I see it? Today it’s my birthday… maybe you should give it to me…
Do you feel like you’ve heard this story before? Yup! It’s the story of Smeagol and Deagol … transposed into space!” “Scavengers of Kuiper Belt” is a speed-power metal song in the vein of Blind Guardian style, fast and powerful. It has some technical sections (especially in the midsection). The singing is heavier and mighty, along with some thrashy riffs, a soft-fusion bridge, and a prog-thrash ending.
