Album Premiere: Vinsta, Vinsta Wiads

If you’ve been unhappy with the direction Opeth have gone on recent albums, get in here right now: Vinsta are the band for you.

Comparing new music to just one well-known band is incredibly reductive, of course — Vinsta’s debut album offers so much more than straight Opeth worship — but if that description got you in the door — yeah, you! — it was worth it. Here’s some more if you’re still with us: Vinsta’s music is at once uplifting and melancholic, melodic and brutal, bright and grim, ranging from blistering guitar leads and double-bass blasts to barebones folky acoustic passages. It’s incredibly dynamic, and just one song will make you ache to hear the full album which is why we’re premiering the whole thing today on MetalSucks.

Vinsta is the solo project of Christian Höll, who hails from the mountain town of Salzburg, Austria. Höll tells MetalSucks that his physical surroundings have been incredibly influential on his music:

“The Salzburg Alps are my haven, and I think they have a particularly strong influence on my creativity and the way I express it. Also, hiking helps me to calm down and to structure my thoughts. I find it very inspiring, and a lot of ideas were born during one of my long hikes in the mountains. I am very thankful to be living in this region, and that feeling shapes my music as well.”

It’s not surprising, then, that the album is sung entirely in the regional Eastern Alp dialect. It’s an unorthodox approach in this day and age of English everything, to be sure, but it feels right.

Vinsta Wiads comes out on August 25th via Trollmusic; listen in full below and pre-order here.