The name says Weedpecker. The artwork looks like it belongs on a doom record. You brace yourself for a wall of fuzz and sludge, and then something entirely different comes out of the speakers: expansive psychedelic rock layered with post-rock textures that feel closer to Mogwai than to Electric Wizard. Piotr Dobry started writing V in early 2023 with a thought he couldn’t shake: everything that feels stable and permanent is, in reality, incredibly fragile. That idea runs through all six tracks of the Warsaw quartet’s fifth album like a thread you only notice when you stop looking for it.
“Fading Whispers” sets the tone with over eleven minutes that unfold patiently. The opening builds through layers of guitar and synth before the riff arrives, and when it does, it hits with a weight that the psychedelic textures have been preparing you for. Piotr Dobry’s vocals sit deep inside the mix, sometimes a little too deep. There are moments across the album where pushing the voice slightly forward would have given the songs more presence, more of a human anchor in all those swirling layers. The track earns its length by never repeating itself: each section introduces something new while maintaining the emotional through-line.
“Ash” follows in a similar register, nine minutes of shifting dynamics that move between delicate psychedelic passages and moments of genuine heaviness. The rhythm section of Piotr Kuks (bass) and Zbigniew Promiński (drums) provides a foundation that stays solid even when the guitars and synths drift into more abstract territory. “In The Dark We Shine” is the album’s most compact piece at four and a half minutes, a tighter structure that proves the band can write focused songs when the material calls for it.
“Mirrors” opens up into the album’s most atmospheric stretch, six minutes of layered texture that feel like looking at something from a distance. The synth work from Piotr Sadza and Tomasz Walczak adds depth and color, though there are passages where the layers stack up to the point where the mix feels one texture too thick. It’s a fine line between immersive and congested, and V occasionally steps over it. “The Last Summer Of Youth” closes the record with a title that captures the album’s emotional core: the awareness that something is ending, and the refusal to look away from it. Seven minutes that build toward a climax that feels earned precisely because the album has taken its time getting there.
Haldor Grunberg at Satanic Audio mixed and mastered the record, and the result is warm, spacious, and heavy in equal measure. The production choices serve the songwriting rather than imposing a sound on it, which is exactly what this material needs.
Haldor Grunberg’s mix is warm and spacious, with a wide stereo image that gives the psychedelic and post-rock elements room to breathe. The guitars carry both clarity and weight depending on what each section requires, and the low end is present without being overbearing. The one area where the production could improve is the vocal placement: Dobry’s voice gets buried in the denser passages, losing the lyrical content to the instrumentation. The synth layers occasionally stack up to where the frequency spectrum feels crowded, particularly in “Mirrors” and the busier stretches of “Fading Whispers.” These are minor complaints in an otherwise strong mix. The dynamics are handled well, and the transitions between quiet and heavy feel organic.
Standout tracks: Fading Whispers, The Last Summer Of Youth, Mirrors
V is an album about fragility made by a band that sounds anything but fragile. Weedpecker have always been good at atmosphere, but here they’ve matched it with songwriting that gives the atmosphere something to mean. Beautiful and heavy in equal measure, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.
