Since their founding back in 2015, Porto, Portugal outfit Verbian — currently Vasco Reis (guitar, keys, vocals), Alexandre Silva (bass, keys, vocals) and the band’s newest member Guilherme Gonçalves (drums, percussion) — has firmly cemented a reputation for crafting a sound that fuses elements of metal, rock, electronic music with experimental percussion. For the band, evolution is essential to creating heavy music. And that a commitment to revealing profound commitment to revealing profound emotions and letting artistic expression and your muses take you and your music wherever you dare to go.
The Portuguese trio’s self-released debut, 2019’s JAEZ was followed by their sophomore album, 2021’s Irrupçao was released through Italian label Antigony Records. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the band managed to support the album with shows at Porto’s Hard Club and stops in cities across the Iberian Peninsula like Braga, Viana do Castelo, Santiago de Compostela and Aveiro. When Guilherme Gonçalves joined the band in 2022, the band played Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Santander and at Gouveia‘s Romaria Cultural. They closed out the year with an Iberian tour alongside Catalan band Siberia that featured stops in Vigo, Porto and Coruña.
Verbian’s third album Casarder was just released through Lost Future Records. The Daniel Valente and Verbian co-produced effort was recorded with a different approach from the band’s previously released material: The trio did all of the preproduction in the studio, live. “We then built a tempo map and after that we did overdubs,” the band explains. “But the biggest difference was that these were the first songs we wrote with Guilherme on the drums and we believe that is why it’s so different from the previous albums. He brought a new and fresh groove to our music, maintaining the heaviness.”
Casarder sees the band pummeling listeners with hard-hitting riff after riff. But the material never wears out its welcome, and pulls listeners along on a sonic journey through Dali-esque landscapes of rock forms, pulled apart and reconfigured into something mesmerizing and completely new.
The mostly instrumental material sees the band never lingering on a part too long and never wasting a note. And at its core, the compositions are angry, driving and layered without sounding overly technical or indulgent. Interestingly, the distorted, anxious and surrealistic visual style of the album’s cover art, painted by Madelena Pinta, manages to speak to the album’s direct albeit melted psychedelic, electronic post-metal style.
“Casarder speaks a little about the insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche,” the band explains. “This was the theme that also inspired the album cover.”
Casarder‘s latest single “Marcha do Vulto” is an expansive and bruising composition with elements of post-metal, post rock, stoner rock and No Wave that pummels listeners eardrums while showcasing the band’s and their cast of collaborators, Ivo Magalhães’ (percussion), Pedro Sequeira’s (trumpet), Igor Cavaz’s(saxophone) and Rodrigo Santos’ (trombone) remarkably soulful, technical prowess.
The accompanying live footage features the Portuguese band and their collaborators performing the song in studio.