VAGUESS – Nothing's Secret

Description

I hope we all realize how incredibly lucky we are to have a musician in the world as consistent and prolific as Vinny Earley. Between frequent touring and myriad side projects, he still manages to bring us new material from his long-running solo project annually, thus giving sad sack aging punks like me something to look forward to in this crummy world. The melancholic Nothing’s Secret from 2022 is an almost meditative collection of earworms!
Not that I’m ranking these releases, but this had to be the record I put on more than any other. The songwriting is perfect and it sounds immaculate. It’s moody and detached, but with so much heart and melodies that cut me in half. I love every second of it. Vaguess has often oscillated between singles-a-go-go and a desire to make thematic albums. Nothing’s Secret is adopting both these approaches. There are many hits, like “When It’s Gone“, “Heaven’s Market” (with the excellent Kiana from Diode), and “Profit or Punk?“, but the album also holds together perfectly.
Everything is summed up in the last track mentioned. Between profit and punk, you often have to choose, but Vaguess opens the way to a rare compromise. The album is perfectly balanced, between post-Strokes guitars, keyboards, Elon Musk-like verses, and cowboy impulses. It is also very well produced, which will make it last longer. There was sadness in many of Vaguess’ last albums. With Nothing’s Secret, it gives way to more realism. This LP talks about love here and there (“If Not for Nothin, (Tone)“, “Forever“…), but always with acceptance and relativism. This approach leaves more room for his music. It is very good!

Vinny fearlessly traverses genres, seamlessly switching between glitchy synth punk, jangly art rock, and twangy cowpunk melded together with his singular approach to songwriting, production, and unique voice. On his latest release Thanks No Thanks, Vaguess joins forces with ETT embarking on an odyssey of bigger and bolder production, infectious melody, and introspective songwriting propelled by dialed, head-bobbing rhythms.
With Thanks No Thanks, the vibe of the music shifts in controlled bipolarity as the songs flow from snotty punk tune to heart-felt ballad to dancy Indie banger. The music on this record, however, is uniformly grounded by taut drumming, angular riffing, and tunneling synth arrangements. Earley’s singing style pings from more spoken, punctuated post-punk vocals to ringing, belted choruses. The lyrics feel personal, like he’s working through feelings of love lost, spiritual devastation, and deep conflict with society’s inequities explored through Earley’s poetic, sardonic lens. These narratives careen through the album with the help of densely arranged instrumentation and engineering magic cooked up in Earley’s own homespun studio. This album is best enjoyed with headphones as the music thoughtfully swirls in stereo sound.
Vaguess delivers a diverse pallet of modern rock sounds as a uniform and cohesive piece of art. Thanks No Thanks has something for nearly everyone- eggheads and spikey cretins alike. And while Vinny may not look like The Hulkster or Bart Simpson or do any of that other stuff that was said initially, he more importantly continues to contribute his singular and exciting rock n roll vison to the punk zeitgeist with a new Vaguess Record.