Album Notes

Recorded at Sharkbite studios in Oakland, Ca during 2009.
The record contends with a search for heritage and sense of place amongst an urban environment of absence. The songs were written whilst traveling through New Zealand's South Island before returning to the U.S to record.

Sam Sloane’s mercurial and echo-laden guitar drifts through the songs while Natasha Arens and Jeff Paul’s rhythm section build and swell around the escalating tension in Sloane’s vocals.

With the band now based in the SF bay area but with roots in Christchurch, New Zealand, the songs contend with a longing for home and a sense of loss despite the idealistic urge for challenge and experience abroad. Drawn to the contradictions and contrasts in the U.S the album contends with a futile attempt and defiant struggle to challenge an insurmountable mountain, as a result, Vir produce an album evocative of the American landscape.

Vir’s music is unashamedly melodic, honest and affecting. The songs are built on an engaging dynamic of fragility, melancholy, ambiance and intensity. Live, the band is uninhibited in communicating songs of love and loss and the fervor with which they play elevates the music to evocative peaks.

- Finally, someone makes this shoegaze revival thing work. Oakland's Vir, formerly called Montana, lays U2-size vocals, melodies, and song structures over sinister, flatline backdrops à la Joy Division. The resulting tension, anchored by singer Sam Sloane's excellent guitar work, creates songs that don't stale.— Nate Seltenrich, East Bay Express

Select Gillespie Reviews
Vir conjure up an almighty racket on their second album. Gillespie may scare off traditional shoegazers but this record provides the muscular presence the genre is so often criticised for lacking.
- Leonards Lair

Between the swooping guitar riffs, the clever bass lines and the slightly rough, spaced-out vocals, Gillespie has an epic sound. Keep an eye on this band. - East Bay Express

Vir brings us a sound that we here in the Coachella Valley are desperately trying to find in the local scene. The guitar riffs added with a strong rhythm section creates a solid foundation for trance inducing black magic. - Indie Win

Vir's songs are dark, vaguely ominous tension-builders created out of relentlessly pulsing bass lines and bathed in guitar fuzz. And when the tension is released, it should be enough to scare the leather pants off of Bono. - Weekly Volcano

Well crafted, hypnotic and intoxicating, Vir should absolutely be a breakout band with this material.
- Indie Music