Versus - Ex Voto (2019) Hi Res

New Versus LP - first in a decade and first for EJRC.There have been rumblings for years amongst the band's ardent fans about Versus working on a sci-fi concept album. The band had essentially disappeared from the public eye since releasing 2010's On the Ones and Threes, before the excellent Ex Nihilo EP materialized in May on a new label, Ernest Jenning Record Co. (having previously worked with Teen-beat, Caroline, and Merge), unveiling the nascent stages of this direction. Now, the apocrypha has been dispelled with the announcement of a new LP, Ex Voto, to be released in August, also on EJRC. A discussion with the band's frontman Richard Baluyut reveals allusions to science fiction and spirituality, equally arcane and universal.It is evident immediately that the two records complement one another thematically, and were culled from the same sessions, recorded by Ian James and mixed by Ray Ketchem. "'Ex Voto,' meaning 'from a vow' addresses divinity, and creation," explains Baluyut, "and was inspired by Mexican devotional paintings. They often depict catastrophe, and God's role in and out of catastrophe." He wrily adds, "But I imagined God being alien. Which might be true, in a Starman-sort of way. Ancient Aliens and all that."Lead single "Mummified" exhibits the trademarks of classic Versus, with Baluyut and bassist/vocalist Fontaine Toups swapping perspectives of love and loss over the dual serrated guitar slash of Richard and brother James, while the third Baluyut, Edward, adds supple, visceral drum fills. But it breaks new ground for the band via the high gravitas of its subject matter. "It's about becoming eternal," says Richard cryptically. Yet the unidentified crackling dialogue between a doomed couple buried in the mix suggests a more complex subtext, worlds removed from the sing-song "failed apartments" of Two Cents Plus Tax's "Dumb Fun" from their earlier years, instead swapping in a blurry quandary, a reality where abstraction is the rule and absolutes don't exist.