REVIEW: VLMV - There Will Come Soft Rains

VLMV, pronounced “Alma”, is a decade-spanning project fronted by composer Pete Lambrou. It’s hard to nail down exactly what category or box their music falls into - even Lambrou himself defines it as “ambient-ish post-something”. Ambient is definitely the name of the game here, even the post-rock acts that you can hear some level of influence from, like Sigur Rós feels like a reach to compare them to the second you look past the string arrangements.

So naturally, new album There Will Come Soft Rains on the way once again evades comparison. There’s bits and pieces of gems from the 2000s wave of ambient in there but, still wholly feels like its own thing. This was immediately clear from the only single in the leadup to the album, Bodies Grown Pt. 1. Described as "...an analogue synth played into modular, which gave me something back in response I hadn't planned. Like we were having a conversation, or a duet” by Lambrou, the synth ebbs and flows over the course of nearly five minutes without vocals. It feels like some sort of call and response, with the soft sustain at the end of each phrase starkly contrasting the comparatively harsher tone of the first few moments of each note. The second half shifts into something more akin to post-minimalism. The synth plays over string arrangements now, the strings gradually becoming more present, and by the end of the song it feels like this sort of dance between the synthesised and the natural elements of the song, to ultimately manifest into something that feels wordlessly human.

It feels like a disservice to talk about Bodies Grown Pt. 1 without discussing Bodies Grown Pt. 2, as the penultimate song, later on the tracklist. Immediately setting itself up as taking a different approach to the first part, with Lambrou’s vocals over a grand piano, and that’s the form the majority of the song takes, outside of a string section with a similar ebb and flow to Pt. 1. It effectively serves as the closer to the album too, with final track Somnolence in Reverse feeling more like a post-credits scene. That’s not a bad thing, of course, it’s an absolutely gorgeous instrumental piece, with skittery synths that hop about until coalescing just before a crescendo towards the end with strings, percussion and a strummed guitar, before fadeout. It might be the single most evocative soundscape on the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ0Nc7jQgVk

Elsewhere, you get rhythm experiments over these ever-present, impenetrable synths constantly buzzing in the backgrounds of songs like on We Are All Explorers Now and In Absentia. Meditative and eerie exercises in atmosphere like The Pilot, a song that halfway into its nearly six minute runtime contains this section of chopped up and manipulated vocal samples that adds a completely new dimension to the atmosphere of the album. Or these almost-ballads like the aforementioned Bodies Grown Pt. 2 and I Am an Officer, another almost six minute track that almost feels like the emotional centrepiece of the album, letting you live with the track rather than trying to surprise you, in spite of the rhythmic switch-up and gorgeous string section during the outro.

There Will Come Soft Rains is an album that, as unassuming as it may be, is a surprisingly difficult first listen. It’s one you need to approach without prior expectations (unless you’re already a fan of the group) and sit with it for a while. The more you do, the more its inherent beauty reveals itself.

Score: 8/10

There Will Come Soft Rains will be released on 24th April 2026 via Pelagic Records.

Words: Noise Leonard

Photos: VLMV