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Since the release of debut album ‘Looking for Faces’ in March 2021, everything seems to be falling in place for The Vices. Their first club tour sold out, right after the announcement, Nothing but Thieves asked them to join the stage in Europe’s biggest venues, they opened for Kensington in the Ziggo Dome 3 times and major festivals like Best Kept Secret and Sziget could be ticked off the bucket list. And so the rest of the world seems to turn around for the energetic Groningen natives, after kicking off with their first small headline shows across Europe, until the very last person is convinced. Anyone who has seen The Vices live knows they have always played with confidence – and above all joy and energy – and after a year like this, confidence is something that can only grow. ‘Unknown Affairs’ reflects this new gained confidence audibly. Both in lyric and sound, the band dares to make choices, take risks.
Floris: ‘For me ‘Unknown Affairs’ is about finding your own voice in a world flushed with taste and opinions, and the realization that voices can change and grow both musically and lyrically. I have found more peace to reflect on this. I allow myself to feel deeper and express this too.’
The band’s close friendship, who are constantly together in the band bus or studio, is like a safe bubble in which all observations and thoughts about this crazy world we live in are shared, doubted and spoken about. This bubble motivates and inspires, resulting in lyrics that read away like philosophy. The twentysomethings have often wondered why the world around us is the way it is, but now slowly but surely they dare to take a stand in it themselves. Especially the truths we consciously or unconsciously take away from our upbringing and pigeonholing are popular subjects to be discussed in the band bus. Singer and writer Floris van Luijtelaar: ‘We all have our things you know, that we believe in, that we value that we think are important. It’s like boxes or lines that we colour within. These things feel like inherent truths but in fact they’re not. The issue here is not that we don’t like to colour outside of the lines, but the fact that the lines are contrived and therefore don’t actually exist. If you close your eyes, you don’t see lines. And when you see no lines, you’re
free to think, feel, create whatever you want. That’s the only thing we can do or say that is meaningful, that is true, about what you think and feel about yourself.The Vices
Why is it that we never dare to act purely from what we think and feel in the moment? Why is it that our world seems to be guided by unwritten rules and the judgment of others? And what would it sound and feel like if we didn’t feel that way? On March 17, The Vices will release their second album ‘Unknown Affairs’, a starting point in trying to answer these thoughts. For the Vices there are no universal truths. The only thing we can do is seek truth in our own feelings and thoughts. The album includes previously released singles ‘Strange Again’, ‘I Had A Name’ and ‘Tomorrow I’ll Be’. The album will be released on Mattan Records.