English newcomers The Villains Have Wings have played music together all their lives before building up to their latest project, in which they’ve crafted a thrilling riff-laden metal sound they describe as “authentic and progressive.”
Brothers Al (guitar and vocals) and Jamie Harris (drums) hail from Carlisle, in the northwest of England, and spent 10 years playing as The Sun Explodes, touring across the country and releasing three albums and two EPs. That project ended around five years ago, and Al started teaching himself how to sing. Around a year ago, he began working on new material that would become the first The Villains Have Wings album Not Enough, which will be released on Thursday (31 July).
On the sound they’ve crafted, Al told us: “I find it really hard to describe or classify music I’ve written. It’s certainly Metal, and I think prog is the closest sub-genre to go to. It’s not ‘extreme’ enough to fit in most of the metal sub genres, but there’s too many riffs and breakdowns to fit more nicely into ‘rock.’ There’s only clean vocals, and there’s really cool drums (which I can say because I didn’t write those).”
Our first taste of this is the brothers’ superb debut single Us Vs Them, which was released at the start of this month. It opens up with building guitar noises that drop into a cool stabbing riff with cheeky harmonic bursts, drums join in and it develops into a deliciously heavy combination of darting guitars, backing synths and powerful drums. A stabbing guitar kicks in and chunky guitar chords support Al’s engaging opening vocals. Drawn-out guitars and vocals flow end with the line “And it always seems to be it’s us vs them,” before the vocals intensify in a heavy chorus.
A cool stabbing riff comes in with distant vocal cries, before the pace drops with light vocals “Put on the news and you want to cry, Who makes the choice if we live or die?” A second chorus drops into big djenty guitars and a pulsing siren noise to bring the track to a conclusion.
On the track, Al said: “It’s always a really long road to release some music, so it always feels good when it’s finally done. It’s always difficult though, the amount of other music and ‘content’ you’re competing with for people’s attention is growing so fast. I remember being a teenager, I knew the music I tend to write is a bit weird and I thought I might get a lot of ‘hate.’ But that wasn’t and isn’t what happens really, instead you just get ignored. Which is way worse. As for what to expect: Authenticity! Progressive-Ness! And an as yet undisclosed third adjective.”
The Villains Have Wings sound has been heavily influenced by the brothers spending a lot of time watching a VHS copy of Queen’s Greatest Hits in their younger years, which Al credits for shaping his songwriting and guitar solo phrasing. Both have listened to a lot of metal and tell us that the first Matrix soundtrack was a gateway into the likes of Deftones and Rage Against The Machine.
And on what inspires them to write music, Al explained: “Like most people who write music or create art, I think, it just feels like something inside me that needs to come out. Lyrically, I’ve always been jealous of people who can write more poetically without it sounding cringe and pretentious. A friend summed up the lyrical themes of our album Not Enough pretty well: ‘the world is falling apart and so am I.'”
The Villains Have Wings’ debut album Not Enough will be released this Thursday (31 July), when they’ll also be releasing their second music video. The duo have also already written their second album, and are eyeing up a return to gigging, in Al’s words, “If we ever feel like there’s a chance we’ll be playing to more than just the soundman and barman.”
And Al added: “Come say hi in all the usual social places. We have some fun drum/vocal/guitar covers and playthroughs up or coming soon.”
You can follow The Villains Have Wings on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.
GigRadar 
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