Album Review | 'Vas' 

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For his seventh release under the No Glitter moniker, Billy Martin lives up to the stripped-down, unadorned style the name suggests. “Vas,” a five-song EP released on May 31, is centered around the acoustic guitar and a home recording aesthetic.

The multi-instrumentalist and drummer for Rochester fuzz rock outfit The Ginger Faye Bakers explained his detour toward quieter music on the Bandcamp liner notes for “Vas.” Recovering from a medical procedure that prevented him from playing drums and “making loud music,” Martin spent the recovery period creating acoustic songs.

Past collections from No Glitter — such as the “House Music” EP from 2020 or the self-titled album from 2021 — featured sunny pop and rock cuts with economical hooks and indelible mid-tempo grooves.


“High Soul” retains No Glitter’s signature drive and power-chord guitar vocabulary with some electronic drums thrown in, but the space left for the vocal melody helps to reveal a greater realization of the ’60s rock-meets-grunge paradigm hinted at by the songs of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

This seemingly thin connection gets more flesh on its bones in the context of the song that preceded it; the beautifully sung opener “Partnership,” which borrows from the melodic and harmonic vocabulary of Elliott Smith in bits without sounding derivative.


The closing track “Impressions” includes a compelling directive, in which Martin seems to implore not only his listeners but also himself: Stay a little longer before going home / Lost in the dream of the real and unknown.

The lyrics could be interpreted as a sweet, romantic entreaty, but they could easily be applied to the stylistic departure on “Vas” as a whole. Although No Glitter’s previous exuberant electric guitar licks and electronic textures are largely absent, Martin’s knack for clever melodies gets to shine in lieu of the songwriter’s more typical, dense arrangements.

Daniel J. Kushner is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].