“This has been pretty overwhelming”: Inside the rise and rise of VOWER

VOWER guitarist Joe Gosney has noticed a throughline in their music. They christened their debut EP Apricity, meaning the warmth of the sun in winter. Their latest effort is titled A Storm Lined With Silver. Metaphorically speaking, the unconscious link between them is an idea of a glint of positivity emerging from chaos.

“It’s come through into everything we do sonically, and how we go and play shows,” he observes. “The live scenario is always pretty chaotic, but regardless of who’s at the shows or how stressful the day’s been, we’re always trying to channel that into music.”

That theme has often sprung to mind when his bandmate, vocalist Josh McKeown, listens to the instrumentals in order to write lyrics. “I let subjects be written about, if that makes sense. The song will dictate the subject matter,” he says.

That idea can be traced into the genesis of VOWER itself, a project whose beginning emerged from a constellation of endings, the silver lining buried beneath sadness. Alongside guitarist Rabea Massaad, bassist Rory McLean and drummer Liam Kearley, Joe and Josh comprise a supergroup of sorts, with the combined forces of some of the lost greats of modern UK heavy music – Black Peaks, Toska and Palm Reader. In fact, Palm Reader played their final show the same weekend as Vower’s live debut at last year’s 2000trees.

In the year since, they’ve quickly won vast admiration for their towering, fluid style, combining soaring melody and abrasive heaviness. They packed out the Dogtooth stage at Download this past summer and returned to 2000trees with two triumphant performances, unable to hide just how humbled they were by the adulation they received. More recently, their first outing of Europe with Giant Walker brought more of the same.

“It's pretty overwhelming as soon as you start really thinking about it,” says Josh. “I think the way I deal with it is just going with it because if you start focusing on it too much, I find, personally that it might end up dictating decisions, and I don't think that's a healthy way to work, but it's amazing. It’s not something that's ever lost on us.”

Their time in their previous bands evidently lends them an extra magnetism, but the pair insist it’s not a source of pressure.

“We try not to let other people's expectations bleed into what we think this should be,” says Joe. “When we write a song, the only kind of approval, so to speak, that we're kind of looking for is between the five of us. Songs only get past that initial demo stage if the five of us are really excited about what they are.”

The road to an exciting 2026 is being paved, least of all because Vower are in the thick of writing their debut album, already road-testing a new song on tour that hasn’t even got a name yet. “It feels like we’ve only just scratched the surface on what this band could be,” says Joe.

Josh agrees. “I'm in danger of saying the heavier bits are heavier and the softer bits are softer, but I want to push those aspects and even find new aspects of our capabilities in terms of writers and then eventually performers.

“Even the one that we were playing on the tour is the lowest tuning we've ever played in, but it's also a love song, which isn't something that we've really written before. That’s the big push for me.”

VOWER are on tour in Europe with grandson. February 11 – 20, 2026. The band play Takedown Festival on April 4.

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