The Vintage Caravan are back with their sixth studio album, Portals, arriving Friday (26) via Napalm Records. The Icelandic trio continues to refine their heavy-riffing blend of retro rock and a modern edge. To get ready for what’s to come, the band has teamed up with Metal Insider to walk fans through Portals with a track-by-track guide.
Philosopher (feat. Mikael Akerfeldt)
The first song on the album is called Philosopher and features none other than Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth on lead vocals. To say that having him guest on one of our tracks is an honor would be an understatement. The idea to have him guest on a song came up in the studio, and immediately I heard him in my head singing the verses of this song. It just fit perfectly with his range. Such an expressive singer!
Originally, the track came together when I bought a new acoustic guitar, a nice and resonant Taylor. So naturally, the demo needed to be called “Taylor Swift,” which was its working title until the final stages of the writing process.
Lyrically, the song touches on the topic of the first thoughts of the first people and how basic urges become defined by the first thinkers or philosophers. Just getting down to the most primal thoughts. An interesting contrast to the working title of the song, haha.
—Alexander
Days Go By
Weirdly enough, this song didn’t catch me at first. I put it together as almost a throwaway song because I thought it had a bit of a silly vibe at first. I remember running a lot around that time and the chorus melody came to me over and over again on different days. I started feeling like this song might be something, and then we did our version of it, and luckily we worked it out quite nicely.
It’s my first real use of a wah pedal on bass, and the song is delightfully difficult to play. Also heavily featured is the Farfisa Compact organ, which I had great fun playing through my pedal board and a Sound City amp. That sound is on a lot of tracks on the album.
The song came around a time when I was quite close to burning out. We have been touring quite heavily now for more than a decade, and it takes its toll for sure. I just remember having way too much on my plate with the band and other projects as well as doing a lot of long-distance running, and I just hit a plateau. Nothing really made me feel too much anymore, and I realized I needed to slow down again. Learn to take care of yourself is the lesson!
—Alexander
Here You Come Again
The song starts out with a jazzy vibe that slowly erupts into these thunderous stabs. Eventually, it goes into this robotic riff with these three-part CSNY-inspired harmony vocal lines over it, and then it bursts into a huge chorus. This track features probably my favourite solo of the album.
The vocal melody of the chorus and the melody of the final solo chapter was part of this Italo-Disco-inspired demo I made in 2020, and it was just too catchy to be left to collect dust in my Google Drive folder.
The song is about seeing a friend go through a tough time and trying to encourage them to keep on going and stay strong.
The track features our friend Tómas Jónsson on Hammond organ. In the intro, you can hear Tómas playing and myself messing with an echo pedal that was hooked up to the organ, and that created this really psychedelic feeling to that jazzy chapter.
—Óskar Logi
Current
Current is quite a journey; it’s delicate, Celtic, bluesy, powerful, and progressive. It’s the only song on the album that tells a story instead of being based on our own personal lives. I had that song laying around for like 4 or 5 years, but I couldn’t find lyrics that matched the sadness of the music. Until one day, I was showing my girlfriend the song, and in an attempt to convey the way it made me feel, I brought up old Icelandic tales of mothers drowning their children, which unfortunately was relatively common. So the song is about a girl that has to drown her child because it was spawned from incest. Instead of leaving the child, the mother walks into the sea with her child, and they both perish. Not very uplifting, but I felt like I was telling somebody’s story, like it had to be done. When I was recording the vocals, I felt a very eerie feeling like I wasn’t alone in the room. It was pretty creepy, to be honest.
—Óskar Logi
Give and Take
That was a fun song to do. The intro was something we had talked about. I had always wanted to do more reamping on records, and we did an intro with only one double-sided ribbon, which I placed between the drums and the tiny Pignose guitar amp. Then we took the small amp outside and recorded the intro reamped through the tiny amp. Us and the assistants at the studio had so much fun doing that. Shout out to Barbara and everyone at Arda Recorders!
Another great moment was us finishing up tracking backing vocals in my apartment, where we were all singing group vocals. The three of us, Valdís, Óskar’s girlfriend, and their three-month-old kid. It was a very wholesome moment for everyone.
—Alexander
Crossroads
We did a version of this for our last album Monuments, and the idea dates all the way back to 2018 after I got my first delay pedal (Line 6 DL4) and was messing around with it in a warehouse in Turnhout, Belgium. Somehow we didn’t feel like it fit the vibe of the album at the time, and we shelved it. Then during the writing of this album, we tried it out again, and somehow it just made perfect sense. Amazing how things can change over the years.
I think all three of us have very expressive performances on this song, and it was even a bit hard to start learning the songs for touring now because so many moments were improvised.
Our great friend and amazing singer Eyþór Ingi happened to be in Porto when we were recording the new album, so naturally, he had to do a guest spot on a track. We layered up about five harmonies of his voice, and he nailed it. Great to work with him, and he’s quite a well-known singer in Iceland. Check out his band Rock Paper Sisters as well!
—Alexander
Alone
I wrote Alone during a rough period in my life back in 2021. The song came to me very quickly, and I made a rough demo, improvised some lyrics which included the chorus lyrics of the final product, I sent it to the guys and got no response, haha! So I shelved it until pretty late in the songwriting process for the album, and we played it, and it just clicked!
The song features one of my favorite moments of the album; the interplay between the bass and guitar in the breakdown is improvised and just one of the saddest things we have created, and then it breaks out into that soaring solo.
—Óskar Logi
Freedom
This song includes one of the most insane chapters we have ever created, like a very organised free jazz part, haha! There is also a six-part guitar harmony under the solo which sounded so cool, very Zeppeliny. The chorus guitar part came from me trying to play “Devil Got My Woman” by Skip James but failing miserably. Thank Skip I did because it turned out great!
Freedom is a groovy, funky, bluesy, proggy song that grabs your attention from the get-go!
Note: the first noise at the beginning of the song is the tape machine being turned on. Love that zap!
—Óskar Logi
Riot
Riot came to me in a dream. Those first two riffs were in my head when I woke up, and I was really pleased with them, but I decided to sleep again for a bit and then work on it. Buuuut after I woke up again, I forgot the main riff and spent the entire day trying to remember but finally admitted defeat. Just as I was drifting off to sleep that night, it came back to me, so I ran into my living room and recorded it. The lyrics were inspired by the 2024 riots in the UK which were happening during our tour that summer. It’s about how poorly I would do in a riot.
It’s the first tune I tuned to drop B, so it’s extra METAL!
—Óskar Logi
Electrified
We weren’t sure if this one should make it onto the album to begin with. Thankfully it did, and we ended up doing a lot of fun stuff on this. Stefán’s vocal harmonies on the chorus must be about 30 tracks. Full on ELO and Queen style!
This track also features a performance from organist and synth master Tómas Jónsson on Hammond organ, even starting the song out with some rumbling low-frequency noises. An organ can sometimes be the perfect flavor for a rock and roll track.
The track takes quite the left turn halfway in and almost goes full prog thrash. Funnily enough, that felt like the only direction to take a track that has been so soft in the first few minutes. Sometimes our fingers start itching to play more notes, haha!
—Alexander
My Aurora
My Aurora came to me when I looked out my window in the winter of ‘23 and the sky was full of the Aurora borealis. I stopped what I was doing, turned off all the lights, lit some candles, and picked up my Stratocaster. I tuned the guitar to drop D (which is something I never do), and this song just came to me in like 5–10 minutes. It was pretty magical, a very unique and special moment.
My Aurora is very different than our other material, just features an acoustic guitar, my voice, a flute (played by me), backing vocals from Alexander, and a bit of a mellotron in the last chorus, so it’s a very stripped-back approach and it’s a breath of fresh air when you listen to the album in its entirety.
The response to this track has been amazing. We hope you enjoy it.
—Óskar Logi
This Road
The only track we put together at rehearsal for this album. I brought in three riffs, Alex added the verse and chorus chords and those bass and drum breaks which I love. Stefán suggested using one of the riffs for a build-up after the solo, which was a really nice call! And we worked on that super extra ending for the song. I remember us just laughing about it and having a great time putting it together.
We used this track to get the sound right for the studio session in Porto, and after playing it so many times, we kind of drained the energy from the song and we weren’t happy with that take, so we ended up recording it again on our last day in the studio.
The song is about my life and all the hills and valleys that come with the life I lead, but it’s all worth it, and I wouldn’t change anything because it led me to my girlfriend and the birth of our son.
P.S. See if you can spot the Icelandic in the song.
—Óskar Logi
Feature Image Photo Credit: Stefán Ari Stefánsson
