The Velveteers Raise the Bar with ‘A Million Knives’
Album Review ★ Kenzie Gay ★ @kenzwrites
Today, February 14th of 2025, is a very special day. For most, it is just Valentine’s Day. A commercialized holiday to spread love, hearts, candy, and gratitude that also makes single people (myself included) a little angsty, rightfully so. For some, though, arguably the coolest folks around, today is also a long awaited day about music, rock n roll, and A Million Knives.
Today is the day that The Velveteers’ second studio album hits the world.
A Million Knives: A Review
Produced by Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) via his label Easy Eye Sound, A Million Knives is a grand showcase of how The Velveteers have grown yet stayed true to their roots of garage rock and authenticity. The Boulder-originated trio composed of Demi Demitro (vox, guitar), Baby Pottersmith (drums), and Johnny Fig (drums) has really come into their own after years of playing rowdy house shows, posing as opening acts, and working themselves upward to a level that is difficult to achieve even with the utmost resources. Even with a label backing them, The Velveteers are by all means a pillar in DIY culture, especially pertaining to Colorado, and you can hear that in the new record.
A Million Knives opens up with All These Little Things, a dominatingly electric piece that kicks things off with an angsty and vengeful spirit, which listeners find is a recurring theme throughout the record. The song details themes of bitterness directed at an ex lover through lines that state “All these little things that remind me of you. Kisses that leave wounds” and “my sun rised and set for you, now all that’s left is myself and the moon” and the accompanying instrumentals gel with the lyrics’ resentment by packing a hard-hitting punch that only grows and festers with each following number.
Apart from All These Little Things, See Your Face is another powerful song that pays homage to the Riot grrrl and grunge movements of the 1990s whether it be accidental or not. Demitro sings to her source of pain which could be interpreted as an ex lover, an ex friend, or someone else entirely and her guitar playing is reminiscent of the great Kurt Cobain’s. To be more specific, this song reminded me of Nirvana’s 1991 song Breed if it were twisted with that fiery Riot grrrl attitude and the outcome is nothing short of brilliant. Lyrically, See Your Face is pretty to-the-point with its main mantra being “You are the source of pain. When I see your face I wanna disappear”.
Further down the line, A Million Knives brings Moonchild, a song that garnered my interest from the moment the track list was first released to fans. The piece is dark though alluring and holds strong themes of feeling misunderstood, underestimated, and underappreciated perhaps because of age, gender, or something deeper.
“I am a child of the moon, I am a child of the universe. You can count all my pennies but they won’t tell you what I’m worth…I put all my cards on the table but you always read them wrong” make up the most riveting lines within the song and it’s accentuated with a rip-roaring guitar solo and heavy percussion contributions that raise the bar of not only A Million Knives but expectations of modern rock itself.
Towards the end of the album (though not quite), A Million Knives takes a quick pit stop to a more melancholic style of song within Up Here, track 11. In contrast to most of the record, this piece relies heavily on the acoustic guitar rather than the electric and it is formulated around that age old idea of a caged bird who’s been freed.
“Watch me fly away. I’m not coming down. It’s people like you who try to keep bluebirds on the ground.” Demitro sings, cluing listeners in onto the fact that Up Here’s symbolism is reflectively profound. “From way up here you look so small and it’s funny to think I ever thought of you at all...From way up here I’m sanding tall, the world at my feet and the stars in my palm”. One could infer that Up Here revolves around freedom, specifically freedom from toxic people and abusers that keep you down and manipulate you into unhealthy mindsets. The song is bound to bring a tear or two to you eye if you’ve ever dealt with something similar but it is a need when listening to The Velveteers.
A Million Knives is a no skips album, plain and simple. It’s gritty, ethereal, sharp, angelic, intuitive, experimental, and undoubtedly rock n fucking roll through each beat, riff, and moment.
After this milestone release of A Million Knives, The Velveteers are doing anything but slowing down. They are embarking on their second leg of the A Million Knives Tour the day of publishing with Girl Tones as a supporting act.
The trio will play cities ranging from Denver to San Diego and though no shows were booked in my area (Grand Rapids, Michigan in case their booking mgmt is reading this…), I encourage anyone who’s able to catch a show on this upcoming stretch of dates; you will NOT be disappointed.
