BIO

​​​Asphodels, the seventh studio album from The Veils, was recorded live to tape over five days at Roundhead Studios in Aotearoa New Zealand.

 

The Veils debut album The Runaway Found turned 20 last year which provided lead singer/songwriter Finn Andrews with a healthy dose of existential dread. 

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“I feel as though this album is the end result of a now disconcertingly long career in music,” says lead singer and songwriter Finn Andrews. “I think after your 7th album, much like turning 40, you should really just stop counting. I’ve learned a lot along the way, which I suppose is the whole point, and I’ve really distilled it all into these 9 songs. As always, I really just write about love and death  -  it’s a compulsion  - and that is once again the case here. But I feel as though I’ve never been able to express this stuff rattling about in my brain quite as directly until now. I have rarely felt proud of anything I’ve made for very long, but this one feels different. It’s built on a strong foundation I think.”

The album takes its name from the Ancient Greek flower of the Underworld, and lyrically, Andrews draws more from the great poets than he does from the well of more traditional rock and roll songwriters.

 

“I lack the discipline to be a poet, so songwriting has always felt like the right place for me. But poets like Lorca, Ted Hughes and Louis MacNeice have all influenced my songwriting a great deal. It’s in writing and then singing these words that I feel most useful in the world I suppose.”

The collaboration between Andrews and string arranger Victoria Kelly is a central aspect of the record, and as with the band’s previous album …And Out Of The Void Came Love, Kelly plays an integral role in bringing the songs to life.

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Andrews says “I really wanted the string arrangements to behave like another member of the band. We even fleshed the character out, like an actor playing a role. It’s this collaboration with Vic that is really at the center of this record I think.”

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The album didn’t have the financial backing of a label initially, so many of the decisions relating to the approach for recording were made purely out of necessity. 

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“We didn’t have the money for a producer, so I produced it,” says Andrews. “Out of that financial insecurity I do think you make clearer decisions, and there certainly wasn’t any room for anything that was remotely superfluous - we boiled it all down to the bone. It takes an emotional toll working like that, but I think the album is all the better for it.”

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The result of all this tumult and instability is a record that possesses the quiet, hard-earned confidence of restraint and that carefully chooses its moments to lift the roof and howl up to the heavens. 

The Veils made their glorious return to the stage in 2023/24 with sold out shows across Europe, North America & Australasia. The band will begin touring significantly again in support of Asphodels in early 2025.