Vundabar is a trio from Boston that makes compelling and earnest rock music with a keen sense for melody. Their last album was 2020’s Either Light, but they’ve returned with a new single “Aphasia” that features Indigo De Souza on backing vocals. It’s initially a low-key guitar-driven joint that opens up with tense uncertainty.
During “Aphasia,” singer/guitarist Brandon Hagen describes a flash of scenes: one moment he’s talking to someone and the next he’s in a stranger’s car with the outside world blurring alongside him like an Impressionist painting. Seemingly, the song captures the inability to connect with your surrounding place and time. The track became even more poignant for Hagen after a personal tragedy threw logic into a wood-chipper.
“The creation of this song was sparked by my dad having a stroke that has resulted in global aphasia,” Hagen explained of the song. “That happening, on top of quarantine, produced a crisis within a crisis. The song originated as being about having difficulty describing the world and yourself, and then my pops’ stroke happened and it felt uncanny and fated.”
The accompanying video for “Aphasia” captures the group’s delightful humor: Two lone vampires unable to communicate their desires until they try to drink each other’s blood. Oops! Then a grand friendship forms. Twilight eat your heart out.
Check it out below.
