Vatican may be one of the metalcore world’s brightest shining prospects. A recent signee to Australian powerhouse label UNFD, their major-label debut, ULTRA, has been garnering widespread praise from critics and fans alike. We’re no exception to the rule, as our glowing review of the record speaks for itself, describing the record as “standing tall in a league of its own”, as well awarding the record a 10/10 score. We recently spoke with vocalist Mike Sugars, who went on to detail what the reception of the record has been like for the band.
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“It feels crazy as I still see people post about it over a month after it came out.” says Sugars, “I’m no stranger to releasing music and having my weekend, when there’s people talking about it or they’re tagging me and then it goes away.” While the excitement seems to be rampant, Sugars believes, in the wider music world, ULTRA may end up being a slow-burner. “I think [it’ll be a slow burner.]. The thing is, Vatican are a small band … [and] it’s so much about that initial moment, but [also] what you can do in a two-year timespan, and how the record can grow.”
The band aren’t keen to ease the brakes, though, as they’ve just come off a colossal tour with SPITE and Boundaries, among others. Further, the band have their first UK tour scheduled later this year with Stray From The Path, which Sugars touched on in our conversation. “I’ve never left North America. I’ve toured Canada and been to every state bar Alaska, Alaska is the only state I’ve never visited … I’ve been very excited and nervous, ‘cause it’s like ‘holy shit we’re going.’ It’s going to be awesome.”
It seems like the tour with Stray was a match made in heaven too, and while those who may have noticed Stray drummer Craig Reynolds’ kind words about the band across social media just a short while before the tour was announced could assume his discovery of the band led to their eventual booking, the opposite, in fact, was true. “We had just confirmed about six hours before he wrote that tweet. We already have a good relationship with Tom [Williams], their guitar player, who we’ve known for a little over a year. Now Craig is becoming more familiar with the band.” says Sugars.
The band’s connection with Stray doesn’t end at the tour, too, as Sugars alludes to a potential appearance on Reynolds’ famed Downbeat podcast. “While I’m over there I think I’m gonna do his podcast Downbeat, that will be cool. I love his show, I think it’s great … they all seem great, and I have a lot of mutual friends [who say] … they’re a wonderful band to tour with.”
In terms of the specificities of their on-tour show, it seems fans of ULTRA will be very pleased with the band’s choice in setlist on their upcoming tours. “On the next tour we’re running with the first four-five songs back to back … [and] I really want to start playing “N.U.M.B.” by the time we go out with Stray,” says Sugars. Of course, the band have been opening with the bone-chilling breakdown of “N.U.M.B.” since the aforementioned tour with SPITE, as captured by hardcore-scene legend hate5six, as you can see below.
On the band’s choice to open their shows with the then-unreleased breakdown, Sugars stated “We just open with the breakdown, and granted, when we played it at LDB, nobody knew what that was, it was just an intro to them. We were teasing a part of record and now it’s cool seeing comments like “holy shit I didn’t know that’s what they were playing!’”
Despite Vatican’s slowly rising cult status, there is still an air of hesitation surrounding expectations for the tour, but the band seem dead-set in following through due to the opportunities the tour presents them, despite some horror stories creeping their way through. “We know a number of American bands that will go over to the UK and Europe, and they kinda eat shit. Our friends in Boundaries are [opening] on the Never Say Die tour, … and before they said yes, we had a couple of other mutual friends who said ‘that tour is gonna suck and you’re gonna hate your life and play to 10% of the room.’”
Sugars states, though, that the band in question weren’t all-too-shaken by these potential woes, and relates it back to the band’s own assuredness that the tour will be a great experience regardless. “They were still like ‘we’re fucking going, we’re getting to play with Suicide Silence and After The Burial.’. That tour is going to be huge. I know a lot of people who tell us how hard their first tour was and how they lost money, [even] having to pay to get there, be there and get back. Thankfully most have told us [the Stray tour is] a great tour, [especially] for our first tour.” he goes on to joke, “Thank god, I’d like to not lose seven-thousand dollars.”
While the effect of their appearance on UK tour and beyond remains to see if the band will continue to rise in their cult status, or explode into the spotlight so many believe they deserve afer their momentous album launch, it’s easy to assume Vatican will be turning some heads with these new tunes in the coming months. You can catch Vatican on tour in the UK later this year, supporting Stray From The Path alongside Guilt Trip, and you can find tickets here. Further, you can find the band’s latest release, ULTRA, both digitally and physically, here. For all things Vatican, metalcore and music in general, keep it locked on BoolinTunes.