Veil Of Maya bring the heat (and the synths) on 'Members Only'

'Members Only' sees Veil Of Maya back on top. 

When I saw that Veil Of Maya dropped a new song last week, I actually wrote it off initially as a new single that would sound like the rest of their releases; nothing new, just the same old stuff. So I didn't bother with it upon release but when I finally did get to it over this past weekend all I could think was "Alex, you idiot, this is sick!" Because now I'm happily eating my own words, as 'Members Only' has quickly grown to become one of my favorite Veil Of Maya songs ever.

Frontman Lukas Magyar delivers one of his best and biggest vocal hooks since 'Mikasa', and his vocal duality of singing and screaming is as strong as ever here. The added electronic percussion and synths are all tastefully weaved in and out of the song's fibers, meshing well with Marc Okubo's driving djenty riffage and the band's tight melodic prog-metal sound. Something that I'm really hoping the band is going to explore further on whatever larger release comes later this year or early next in 2020.

As 'Members Only' is a great proof of concept piece; that Veil Of Maya can try out new things, bring in new sounds and instrumentation, and solidly push their music in a slightly different direction. For real, this track has a goddamn keytar solo during the second half. I don't need to say anything else about it; that's just rad. (Synthwave-metalcore is here, folks.) More bands in prog-metal right now need to have the bigger balls to try different stuff like this and change things up about their sound.

Straight up, 'Members Only' is better than anything found on their last record, 2017's 'False Idol,' and feels more in line with 2015's monstrous 'Matriarch' LP, what with those huge choruses, structures, and melodies, and with the latter's sound really coming through in that nasty-as-fuck breakdown halfway through. Even if the track does have a higher-ranged poppy mix that could use some added lows, this is a great new level up for VOM. Check out this shiny and slick new Veil jam below: