FEATURE:
Spotlight
VLURE
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THIS band…
are not fresh off the block but, with so many of my Spotlight features, the idea is to shine a light on an artist or group who is hitting a stride or are starting out. In the case of VLURE, this is a group who have just released one of the best albums of the year with Escalate. This is very much their moment! Before coming to some recent interviews with them, Sony Music provide some background to this incredible band:
“Since their debut single ‘Shattered Faith’ in 2021, VLURE have built themselves a reputation as one of the most vital and culturally significant bands around. Their performances at The Great Escape and Pitchfork Paris were raved about, their set at Shangri-La was talked about across all of Glastonbury and they were nominated as BBC Introducing Scotland’s Artist of the Year in 2023. To add to this, they also won Best Live Act at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards in 2023 and Electronic & Dance Live Artist of the Year at the 2024 Scottish Live Music Awards.
In 2025, the five piece – Hamish Hutcheson, Alex Pearson, Conor Goldie. Niall Goldie and Carlo Kriekaard – released their first new music in over a year, in the form of ‘Better Days’, now revealed to be the first taste of their long-awaited debut album. ‘Escalate’ is a 13-track collection that is the proudly, loudly, avowedly now sound of VLURE’s hometown, with the thrills and spills of Glasgow – its daylight, its nightlife, and its afterparties – providing the pulse and heartbeat of Escalate”.
This is a busy time for VLURE. They are on tour and have a string of European dates ahead. Escalate is a magnificent debut album. Perhaps the finest of this year so far. And that is up against some tough competition! I am moving to an interview from late last year from Bring the Noise. They spoke with the Scottish Alternative Music Award for Best Live Act in 2023. If you have not connected with VLURE yet then make sure you do. This band are primed for worldwide domination:
“Can you start by introducing the band and telling us about your music background?
Conor: Me and Niall are brothers so I guess it came from that, we have played in different bands and we did this to start something for ourselves. A few years ago we met Alex and Hamish at a gig and decided to start a band together.
Niall: We have been together now for six years and played our first festival five years ago at Truck Festival. We actually played there again last weekend. We released our first song three years ago.
How did your music style develop, can we get away with calling it trance-punk?
Conor: We were into punk at that time, during COVID we decided to create something for ourselves. We were also into dance music so decided to try to combine both of those.
N: Myself and Carlo were into the production side of things and we think that has helped our music develop.
We find that people from Glasgow are always a hard crowd to win over for up and coming bands, why do you think that is?
N: Glasgow is a no bullshit city and the people can be very self-deprecating and very harsh, but once you are established they take to you quite easily. This is the case in all walks of life in Glasgow, not just in music.
Carlo: We supported Bob Vylan recently at The Garage in Glasgow. The first half of the set people were wondering who we were, but by the end of our set they were saying that’s quite good actually. It was an amazing experience supporting Vylan.
Have you had any support from any fellow Glasgow bands?
Conor: There is such a concentrated network of people creating art in Glasgow, we share a studio space with bands from around the area.
Carlo: We are lucky enough to know so many people working in music, be that DJ’s, producers etc. and we take inspiration from each other”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Brennan Bucannan
I am moving to a great 2025 interview from The Line of Best Fit. Raw emotion, energy and ambition goes into every note of their music. VLURE’s debut album is one of the most complete I have heard in a while. An instant classic, Escalate should be heard by everyone. As The Line of Best Fit say in the header of their interview regarding VLURE: “their true aim is bigger than the beat: to reframe euphoria as a collective act of defiance”:
“Like their music, VLURE’s aims are big and sincere – a far cry away from the usual detached pessimism Glasgow can get oversimplified with as a city. And this band adores their city. After a few years of touring, and shows across Europe as their star rises, their debut Escalate is a love letter to growing up here.
The five-piece get this across musically with a high-chasing dance and industrial hybrid sound, live guitar and drums mixed with brutish breaks and peak time synth lines, all presided over by Hamish Hutcheson’s urgent spoken word. There are pieces of Arab Strap in Hutcheson’s poetry, and more than a touch of For Those I Love, but the group are just as indebted to the current openness of the scene in Glasgow.
“I used to promo a wee DIY label,” says Goldie. “At that point, in your late teens or early twenties, you’re paying the venue fee and just bringing your mates, having a party, and finding spaces that can accommodate. Then people have your back throughout that.
“That crosses genre scenes. Glasgow’s got an amazing club scene where everyone’s got each other’s back. There’s the rap scene which doesn’t get enough attention. The community here is amazing, and everyone shares ideas”
PHOTO CREDIT: Brennan Bucannan
VLURE have quickly moved to larger venues, supporting their heroes Primal Scream on tour as well as slots at TRNSMT and Glastonbury, but they are just at home in places like McChuills, which they played back in 2021 with The Murder Capital.
“You can play some massive show, and it’ll be amazing, but I’m lucky when I play smaller venues,” Goldie says. “Playing a 200-cap venue in Glasgow with everyone here who’s on the same wavelength, screaming in their face, and they’re right in front of you. It’s just chaos. We need more of that.”
“So much of that is struggling in the UK. We did the Music Venue Trust tour a couple of years ago, and it was amazing. Independent venues are the lifeline, to any access to making music, for young people to have the opportunity to go to spaces and get involved.
“You’re also left with all the people who are really up against it and really give a shit, so you start to find common ground in that. The techno guys and the rappers and the visual artists, we’re all in the same shit here.”
Despite finding joy and comfort in their home city, starting any new project can be met with scepticism here. “We actively stuck it out,” Hutcheson says. “People are just not arsed. Our aim was to go around other countries, do lots of stuff, and when we come back people will be like ‘you are class, actually.’”
“A lot of young people, and especially artists and musicians, feel like they need to leave Glasgow to get to that stage, whether that’s going to London or another major city,” Conor agrees. “That’s something that we’ve been conscious of trying at any opportunity, that you can be Glaswegian, be in Glasgow and have a music career.”
“Glasgow itself, even though it can be pessimistic, hedonistic, crazy – people have each other’s back.” says Hutcheson”.
A true love letter to Glasgow, Escalate is going to connect with those beyond the borders of the Scottish city. This is an album that is hitting people around the world. And, as one of the most astonishing and memorable live acts around, they are getting a lot of love and growing their fanbase. DORK spoke with VLURE recently. Their debut album, as they note, “maps the territory of youth itself”:
“‘Escalate’ emerges as a narrative journey through youth itself, mapping the territory between weekend revelry and Monday morning reality. As Conor explains: “Lyrically ‘Escalate’ discusses themes of coming of age, finding yourself, love, partying and youthful abandon, but also the heavier side of that; grief, nostalgia, addiction, recklessness and knowing when to hold your mates close. We wanted this record to be equal parts euphoric and reflective but overall positive and fulfilling; its aim is to find power in the whole process of becoming who you are, with a night out in Glasgow’s clubs, pubs, parks, flats and afters as the backdrop.”
The album’s sonic palette reflects this ambitious scope, drawing from a variety of influences while maintaining its own distinct identity. Working with renowned electronic producer Manni Dee, VLURE have crafted something that defies easy categorisation. “We wanted this to be a crossover record in every sense and not to be pigeonholed by the perception of us as a ‘band’,” Conor notes. “There are moments that are full post-punk band chaos, but there are also moments that certainly live in the clubs; Manni being one of the UK’s most forward-thinking electronic producers, as well as his former techno life helped us hone in on this.”
The recording process itself became a testament to their DIY spirit and determination, combining home studio ingenuity with professional expertise. “We recorded the synths and programming in our home studios on Logic and Ableton. The live instruments were recorded in the live room together as a solid performance at 45 A-Side Studios in Glasgow. For the vocals, we recorded those at Hamish’s gaff in Ballieston,” Conor shares, adding with characteristic enthusiasm, “We loved every single minute of it.”
The technical challenges were real – “Just my MacBook’s RAM capacity, to be honest,” Conor jokes – but the bigger challenge lay in merging their electronic and live elements. Enter mixing engineer James Rand, who Conor praises as “an incredibly talented engineer” who “understood exactly what we were trying to do.” This collaboration proved crucial in realising VLURE’s vision of a record that could live comfortably in both live venues and late-night headphones.
When asked about the best possible compliment for the album, their answer reveals much about VLURE’s artistic integrity: “Hopefully, that it doesn’t sound like anything else around at the moment. This was something we discussed in depth, just retaining focus on doing what felt right to us and not trying to overly reference things. To go and move relentlessly with the feeling and our immediate responses!”
For VLURE, a great debut album comes down to “emotional integrity.” It’s an apt description for ‘Escalate’, which captures the raw essence of nights that blur into mornings, of friendships forged in dark clubs and tested in bright daylight.
As for where they hope this album takes them? “That’s not entirely something we’ve considered or something we like to think about,” they admit. “We hope there’s something in this record for everyone and that the people it reaches are able to find some of themselves in it, connect with it and are able to make some mad memories with their mates shouting the words with us at the live shows. It’s all for the memories”.
In spite of the fact VLURE have been on the scene a while now, they have just put out their debut, so it is a good time to put them in my Spotlight series. Many still see them as rising, even though they have been playing and releasing music for a long time now. I am staying with DORK for the final inclusion. Their five-out-of-five review of Escalate:
“When they first burst onto the scene, VLURE were lumped in with post-punk, often sharing festival stages with dour bands who wouldn’t crack a smile if their label deal depended on it.
In the years since then, the band have proved time and time again that they suit a 1am club spot far more than a mid-afternoon in the back of a pub function room. ‘Escalate’ is the final clarion call for what VLURE are really about – and it sure isn’t post-punk.
Opener ‘I Want It Euphoric’ is a mission statement, its window-rattling bass overlaid with a pounding synth line as lead singer Hamish intones ‘Take it or leave it / I want it euphoric’. What follows hammers that message home at every opportunity. ‘Let It Escalate’ owes as much to Goldie as it does to anyone else, a rattling rhythm soundtracking Hamish’s rapidfire lyrics.
Elsewhere, gothic synths underpin ‘Tha Gaol Agam Ort’ and ‘Just Breathe’ goes further afield than the band have ever been before, enlisting French singer Gaïa to mark out an oasis of calm in an otherwise relentlessly uptempo tracklist.
Old favourites are sprinkled throughout, too, each reworked to give them even more heft. ‘Heartbeat’ was always an absolute banger, but here it feels like a revelation – the kind of track that you hear blasting through the walls of a nightclub at 3am.
Debut albums can be tricky to get right, especially when you’ve been a going concern for as long as VLURE have. On ‘Escalate’, they’ve turned up, absolutely flattened any expectations and proceeded to throw a party in the wreckage. Forget post-punk, VLURE are here to proclaim the rise of pill-punk”.
I am not sure how much focus is put on Glasgow. In terms of a music city. We need to spend more time there, as VLURE are one of many incredible artists emerging from the city. Right now, the band are looking ahead to some European dates. Their music translates and extends far and wide. Songs that have connected with so many people. On their upward trajectory, I think we will see them headline festivals. Major ones. With Escalate surely sitting alongside the best albums of this year, there is no stopping…
THIS Glasgow quintet.
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