FVRmind - 'Onto You'
With Winter well and truly upon us, and a low sun casting long shadows, it’s fitting that FVRmind should choose to drop their sophomore single now. A haunting hybrid of ethereal alt rock, Scandinavian folk and melancholic trip-hop, ‘Onto You’ is the perfect accompaniment to winter weather.
Unfurling at a fittingly glacial pace, a rhythmic drumbeat skitters behind mournful swells of strings, as Iona Isabella’s spectral vocals float hypnotically above. Flirting between the fragile and the formidable, it’s Isabella’s vocals that serve as a focal point, effortlessly conveying the track’s narrative – that of an outsider beating down the mental walls someone has built to protect themselves.
It’s a situation many of us may have found ourselves in, yet FVRmind manage to channel the emotions that come with such a situation with a subtlety and elegance most of us would struggle to muster. That is, at least until it’s second half.
Undergoing something of a seismic shift, the once understated guitars take on a more threatening and imposing stance. Towering walls of noise bolstered by the ever more frantic strings section whilst Isabella’s vocal sheds any of its fragility, becoming something altogether more manic, more primal, before falling away as easily as they formed, leaving nothing but a lone guitar and a vocal now bereft of any of its former formidability.
It’s a testament to the band that they’re able to so succinctly convey such a complex scenario in a little under five minutes. And that they succeed so effortlessly is further testament to FVRmind’s musicality, as well as their artistic integrity. Harbouring echoes of bands such as London Grammar and Portishead, ‘Onto You’ is a bold second offering from a band with ambitions matched only by the size of their vision.
Words of Dave Beech