3 out of 5

Label: Dome A Records

Produced by: Tom Peters (engineered by)

It has been a while since VASA’s full length debut – five years is not forever, but it’s enough time for some significant changes – and the bright pop of instrumental math rock from Colours has grown on sophomore release Heroics. …Kinda.

The defining vibe of the quartet’s approach was to marry emo-pop / -math vibes like Jimmy Eat World and Minus the Bear to the more complex and weighty music of Dischord’s punkier efforts, but all without too much showy sincerity or cheek or bravado: get in, rock and roll with a smile, and get out. Heroics carries that forward into a proposed narrative that covers a lot of ground based on the track titles, going from ‘Childhood’ to ‘Adolescence’ to ‘Prom Night’ to ‘Adulthood’ to ‘Settle’ – yikes! – and it’s ultimately more than the group’s sound can grapple with. Because while it’s good news that VASA can still pull off that magic of being kind of effortlessly complex and catchy and poppy and heavy all at once, once the music moves into its narrative’s eras that demand a bit more dimension, the combo can’t get us there. ‘Adolescence’ slows things down, and the group mixes up expectations well with chord progression change ups and some good, weighty production support from Tom Peters to give the track a propulsive low end, but the song wells up to a lack of conclusion. VASA doesn’t quite know what they’re building toward on any given song – it’s counter to that get-in / get-out vibe – and that carries over to the whole album.

Which doesn’t prevent tracks from rocking, of course, and for some amazing all-timers to sneak in late in the game, like the back-and-forth dialog musicality Victoria, or how closer ‘Settle’ ironically brings back some anarchic math-y mash-ups a la Colours – maybe indicating the group is settling on that as being their de facto sound? – and these are absolutely enough to carry you through some good-but-underwhelming bits like the Weezer-y standard ‘Expectations,’ where I will step back on my prior nod to Peters, as I think he didn’t really find an ideal mix that worked for the album overall, needing a bit more dynamism to bring out its highs and lows.

All that said, I will always appreciate a band exploring as long as they learn along the way, and with so little VASA recorded material as of this writing, Heroics has plenty of interesting ideas – and some select rocking tracks – to make it a worthwhile exploration for a listener as well.