Vacant Shores - 'Vacant Shores'

There are releases that wash over you, and then there are releases that pull you under until you realise you’re breathing in a whole new atmosphere. Vacant Shores’ self-titled EP does the latter, offering a glowing, transportive step forward for a Bristol trio who have always known how to craft mood, but here learn how to command it.

The expansion of the lineup has done something extraordinary: Suzy Alderton’s voice reshapes the group's horizon. Her presence is woven through the EP like mist drifting through streetlights. The interplay between her tone and Sidford’s melodic instincts gives Vacant Shores a new emotional architecture that feels heavier, more cinematic, and achingly human.

Opener 'Flat Circle' immediately announces this shift. Pulsing synths ripple beneath vocals that feel suspended in time, as if the song is stuck between a memory and a dream. Jon Elliott’s production is alive with tiny movements, flickers of light, and textural details that unfurl with each listen.

'Wasted Breath' leans into a more shadowed palette, its rhythm moving like slow-motion neon. Alderton inhabits the song with a kind of fragile strength, and the whole track feels like it could soundtrack the lonely hours after last call, when the city’s hum becomes a confessional booth.

But it’s '3 Fire Alarm' that showcases the band at their most ambitious. It’s immersive, urgent, and visually minded. Here, Elliot’s production blossoms into widescreen territory, all sweeping pads and trembling edges, while the vocals hover like ghosts made of light.

What makes this EP so captivating is the way Vacant Shores fold grandeur into quietness. Their sound draws from the lineage of trip-pop’s great architects, but the result never feels derivative. Instead, it feels like a band finally finding the vocabulary they were always meant to speak.

With this self-titled EP, Vacant Shores are truly ascending. They’ve carved out a sound that feels boundless yet intimate, a glowing dusk-lit world built for wandering. And as they continue to draw more listeners into their orbit, it’s clear that Bristol has birthed another essential voice in the electronic landscape.