Her Vanished Grace plays power dream pop. They have been persistently weaving strands of alt and indie influences for two decades and show no sign of letting up. On their latest release, STAR-CROSSED (2012), the lush abrasion of melting guitars stirs the atmosphere with brutal loving care. The odd radiance of these unlikely songs echoes with the delight of their breathless dizzying roar. With quixotic enthusiasm, Nancy and Charlie Nieland, Maria Theodosiadou and Billy Loose continue to search for a sound that resembles the silent hurt and the loud noisy joy of life on earth.
Charlie and Nancy Nieland met working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC in late 1986 and formed Her Vanished Grace the following year. They played their first show at The Knitting Factory the same month as their wedding in '88.
HVG went from being a colorful new wave and goth influenced duo on STATE OF GRACE (1991) and the shoegazey FESTIVAL (1992) to a full band on WAITING (1994) and SOON (1996), neatly balancing dream pop with the urgency of indie rock. In 1997, Nance and Charlie began playing with bass player Maria Theodosiadou on the sprawling COLORS VOL 1 & 2 (2000), striking out in all directions with pop, electronica and prog sensibilities. Charlie and Nance then became involved with the scoring of the film THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS, completed in 2001, which also included the song "Out The Window" from COLORS.
In 2003, drummer Billy Loose joined, ushering Her Vanished Grace into a new era. With PARADISE (2004) and then GET UP (2005), HVG really hit its stride, powered by brightly sculpted melodies, winging Morse code guitar filigree and driving post punk rhythms. SATELLITES (2006) and TWILIGHT (2007) showed that HVG's atmospheric direction was becoming increasingly tuned in to the resurgence of shoegaze.
With BLUE (2009), Her Vanished Grace blended vintage guitar rasp with colorful clouds of sound, achieving airplay on college and alternative stations. The band honed their propulsive melancholia into crushing beauty on SEE THE MOON (2011), with a stunningly trippy video for the song "Passenger" directed by B. A. Miale getting plenty of plays. Which brings us to their new album STAR-CROSSED (2012) With guest appearances from members of Dead Leaf Echo, Black Sugar Transmission and The Invisible Kid, the album boasts white hot textures and plush melodies on tracks like "Car Crash", "Fade Away" and "Turn It Over".
Her Vanished Grace has appeared on various terrestrial radio programs like Machine Age Voodoo on WRSU 88.7 FM, Flyweight and Love & Mathematics on WZBC 90.3 FM, Dream Wave on WNYZ 87.7 FM, The Buck Calhoun show on KHSU 90.5 FM, Adventure U on KTCL 93.3 FM, Hindsight on KDHX 88.1 FM, Sound Awake on KPFT 90.1 FM and Incoming on WKGB 92.5 FM and on internet radio programs like Halcyon Waves, Sound and Vision and When the Sun Hits on Strangeways Radio, The Lopsided World of L on Indie 103.1, Air Atlantic Underground, DKFM Shoegaze Radio, Aurora Radio and Church of Girl Radio on Live 365. In August 2011, Her Vanished Grace opened the I Am The Programmer Flights 013 podcast and was #2 on the Top 25 of 2011 on Dream Wave on 87.7 FM WNYZ.
Front Page Photo by Tina-Louise Reid
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