Track Review: “Wait And See” by Vanitas

To say 2024 has been an incredible year for Birmingham based Cinematic DJent pioneers Vanitas could probably be the understatement of the year. What they have done is taken the momentum of 2023, in which they released four well received stand alone singles as well as playing Burn It Down Festival alongside the likes of Creeper, Caskets and Lake Malice and taken another giant leap forward. Not only have they unleashed a scintillating sophomore EP in “Chaos Theory” which finds them offering a more expansive sound that happens to be on the heavier side. No. They played a sold out home town show at The Flapper before heading out for a UK tour with Warlock A.D as well as appearing at a collection of one day festivals. Let’s call it perpetual forward motion in style, the upward trajectory towards touring Europe and sharing stages with larger bands very much maintained.

Taking the cliché that is “go hard or go home” to the nth degree for Vanitas it’s simply not enough to achieve all that they have this year. Their creative minds are still ticking and their calloused hands are still twitching. Feeling inspired, they entered the studio once more and recorded a final single of 2024 in “Wait And See“, an exploration the duality of excitement and the anxiety of trusting an unknown future. Once again it features Orchestral programming by Matthew Jones at CapsaArx Studios who also mixed and mastered the track while Ethan Vega handled the vocal production. What does it sound like? Picking up where the band left off with “Chaos Theory” as if they never left the studio, a thunderous, harsh opening verse with vocals rising from the black depths within the first second hits like a sledge hammer to the skull. Following their well established tradition, vocalist Jade Maris then bursts into huge, bright clean chorus of arena sized sing-a-long quality that is utterly mesmerising. Sonically the band play at the tempo of the damned with vim and vigour, cleverly disguising the subtle tempo shifts that slow the momentum down just a notch to allow Maris the opportunity to switch from scream to sing without running out of breath. That means that none of the energy is lost in the chorus which is exactly how you want it to be, especially live. Painting the white to grey as they play with texture, the last thing you might expect from the band is a bombastic Deathcore breakdown and verse but they pull it out of the magician’s hat with consummate ease. Make no mistake, the extremes within the Vanitas sound are pushing out, so they are both heavier and more melodic than ever before – at the same time. Some of the guitar work is utterly spellbinding, the dexterity to be able to play the more technical riffs at the tempo in which they’re offered up blows the mind. There is an argument that with “Wait And See“, Vanitas have produced their finest work to date… [10/10]