Several singles have teased the album in recent months. 'Brother Of Mine', 'When They Come For Me', 'Get Lost', 'Every Living Creature' and 'The New Year's Resolution' all pointed towards an album that comes out swinging and faces up to fears.
As Spielbergs fast-established themselves as a refuge for like-minds, people seeking a place to hear something they recognised in themselves, their wielding of a sound that melded indie-rock, post-rock, punk and echoes of 90’s emo, resonated far beyond their native Oslo. Their music existed as a way to escape, a place to get lost within, so with Vestli coming into view it might be a surprise to hear the band focussing their attentions on feelings of being trapped. That trapping could be by geography or by emotion but either way, the songs that make up Vestli carve a path paved made of doubt, isolation, and fear.
Singer and guitarist Mads Baklien says of the album: “The songs on Vestli are all more or less about a feeling that there is no way to go. No escape. You are dealing with issues in your mind, regrets, shame, fear, should haves and could haves. No way out. Maybe you don’t like who you are or who you have become. You are stuck with being you. You are dealing with a lot of pressure and noise in your everyday life, and all you want to do sometimes is just to leave everything behind and find a quiet place somewhere to start a new life. But you can’t. You have commitments and responsibilities. You’re going nowhere. And now on top of everything, the entire world seems like an out-of-control aeroplane with a bunch of f***ing nuts behind the wheel. And there is no way out. You carry the place you grew up inside you your whole life, for good or bad. Vestli is the name of the suburban borough in the north-eastern part of Oslo where both Stian and I grew up. You can leave Vestli but Vestli never leaves you.”
