The KVB

Cold wave duo The KVB are today sharing ‘Overload’, the second single from their upcoming album ‘Tremors’ which is being released on 5 April via Invada Records (Gazelle Twin, Beak, Billy Nomates).

‘Overload’ pulses with a contemporary take on the classic 80s new wave sound. Driving drums and bass are the bedrock on which towering synth and guitars are built, whilst the echoing vocals capture the detached melancholy of an early Robert Smith or Ian Curtis.  

The band explain that “Overload embodies the dystopian pop aesthetic of the album. It’s about the dilemmas of the creative process, being dependent on when inspiration strikes, never being content with your own creations and striving to make something new and better. Ultimately, it’s relinquishing fear of failure, and asserting the desire to create.”

Specifically on the video, they add: “inspired by the green buildings of Singapore, the architectural sculptures of Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno and 'The Drought' by J.G. Ballard. The video for Overload envisions a future world where the only remaining water is limited to the elite's swimming pool / gardens and the Saraceno-like environmental sculptures, built to raise awareness and combat climate change, dominate and thrive in the dystopian landscape.”

‘Overload’ follows the first single to be released from the album ‘Labyrinths’, on which The KVB returned to the darker sound that embodied their earliest releases whilst retaining the infectious pop of their last album ‘Unity’.

The band have dubbed their new album ‘dystopian pop’, and wrote it with the live show in mind; full of energy, hooks and dynamic moments. On the album’s subject matter, the band explain that they have “expanded on previous album themes of dystopia, apocalypse and the human condition, but with a more pessimistic outlook and deeper distrust than before. It also touches on themes of loss, and the resistance, lament and acceptance of inevitable change.”

Writing the album between Manchester and Bristol, and recording alongside James Trevascus (Billy Nomates, RVG), the band have drawn on their own back catalogue and the music that inspired them at the very beginning of their artistic journey. The end result is the most complete album from The KVB to date, full of emotive impact and pop hooks presented in a uniquely shadowy atmosphere and with an idiosyncratic detachment that adds to the cinematic quality of their sound.

Formed in 2010, The KVB's music has long reflected Nicholas Wood and Kat Day’s mastery of atmosphere as their sound evolved over the course of the 2010s. Early releases dealt in brittle beats and sonic blasts that evoked Cabaret Voltaire and the Jesus and Mary Chain in equal measure, but the duo's style has gradually become more streamlined and sharp-edged on each record since.