Indie pop group Vona Vella release their latest album Carnival this week.
While their signature male/female blended vocals have remained, Carnival definitely reflects a shift in Vona Vella’s sound compared to their self-titled debut in 2023. The duo have morphed into a five piece band and the result is a looser, more guitar led, and honestly more authentic sound.
“The sound has changed,” says Izzy Davis, vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, flute). “After finishing our first UK headline tour [2023], we had the best time ever, but it made us realise we wanted to ditch backing tracks, not stay on the grid for anything, in terms of being perfect. We wanted everything to be loose and different every time we played it, depending whatever mood we were in.”
“We’ve sort of grown up,” adds Dan Cunningham, vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, piano). “And realised not everyone’s perfect and not everyone’s out there to do a good thing for you.”
The title Carnival emerged from the chaos of their day to day lives. The feeling of trying to build an album between endless house moves and juggling day jobs with their music careers. “Carnival, it’s like in life, you’re going round in circles and everything’s kind of blurry,” says Izzy. “But it’s really colourful, really beautiful as well.”
“You’re enjoying the ride,” says Dan, “but you’re not sure what’s really going on”
The tracks speak of the fragilities of being human. Of toxic love interests, personal shortcomings and warped romances. If you listen too hard, it’s a fairly depressing album. As well as their musical coming-of-age, gone is the wistful youthfulness of their earlier work. The edges are more jagged and the Carnival hasn’t actually always been that much fun. Musically though, it’s still quite bouncy and jaunty – reflective of the fact that, despite these hardships they’re still resilient, still carrying on. There’s a darkness on tracks such as album closer Bottled (ironically, one of the oldest tracks on the album) but the overall feel is definitely jangly indie guitars meets dream pop. I like this, I think a sad, dark album would have been a step too far from the sound we’re used to. This juxtaposition between the storytelling and the music is a happy medium showing strong growth of the band, and greater emotional depth.
I enjoyed the whole album but there were definitely a couple of tracks that really stood out to me. Bass Driver was the first. Izzy credits The Breeders as her inspiration and to my ears it’s also giving Last Dinner Party – albeit with heavier rock guitars. There’s just something really lovely about the way the song is put together. There’s space where songs would typically be cluttered, and I love the way the vocals dance around from breathy and gentle to light and bubbly before becoming more powerfully entwined with the guitars.
I also loved Exit Plan. This gentle track has tinges of early Lily Allen. In some ways it doesn’t really fit with much of the rest of the album. It feels a lot more stripped back, and it’s a short song, almost an interlude (it’s less than a minute and a half) but it just felt like this little moment of vulnerability where they took away the band and let the feelings hit. I don’t wish the rest of the album sounded like this, it works because of the contrast to the bulk of the other songs, but it’s definitely the track that’s stuck with me since first hearing it.