Vessel - Wrapped in Cellophane (2024) Hi-Res

Vessel are an Atlanta quartet who play post-punk with bright bursts of melody (via both singing and saxophone) and lithe, elastic rhythm. Their music leans closer to indie rock than pop, but I appreciate that they make post-punk feel more like a party than a very serious art project.

The result is an album that zips along through one infectious idea after another, landing on the more effervescent side of the art-rock spectrum. If Vessel is an organism made of these four players, Tuisku provides the heartbeat: Her drums are the crisp propulsion underneath everything, and her vocals peel out alongside Robinson’s guitar and Bishop’s sax. Most of Tuisku’s lyrics derive from her own life, mulling over distance and relationships. Sometimes, the relentless, coiled rhythms the quartet favor can mimic the feeling of those emotions constricting in your chest, but most often Vessel strike playful contrasts — “Lost Appeal” grapples with numbness and apathy while the music adopts a bouncy, doo-wop inspired tone. Elsewhere, images and ideas collide in vibrant fashion. Whether a takedown of the rich and fake and famous in “Game” or a tale of aliens in “Abducted,” fun asides coexist with heavier songs like “Blonde” — a lesbian love affair unfolding in a psych ward and ending in tragedy.

Throughout, you can hear how Vessel patiently chiseled spontaneity into precision. Free-form jams have become punchy pop missiles in their hands — sometimes hypnotic, sometimes kraut-y, sometimes breakneck, sometimes danceable, sometimes pining, sometimes sly. Across Wrapped In Cellophane, Vessel make a sound that could only be the result of these four people together in a room — a sound that is wildly, vividly alive.