Audiopile Review: Likely a familiar name to some of our readers, Vegyn was the creative force behind the music on Headache’s The Head Hurts but the Heart Knows the Truth, a recent Record of the Week and top pick for 2023 here in the shop. With his latest, Vegyn has crafted a diverse and emotionally resonant set of tracks brimming with nostalgia—songs meant to reside within a bevy of core memories. For those introduced to Vegyn through the Headache LP and looking for another hit, The Road To Hell is your next best bet—the woozy downtempo inflections and dusty breaks are still running deep throughout, even if Vegyn’s genre-defying scope reaches a bit wider here. Touches of strings and guitars mix with driven, dancefloor-ready percussion, bringing to mind the wistful organic/electronic hybridizations of Four Tet. Vegyn’s prolific production has always been hip-hop adjacent, which is particularly evident in the colourful, Teebs-inspired beat work present in the DNA of many tracks on this album. While half the album is instrumental, the collaborations with vocalists are some of the standouts, including two contributions from longtime associate John Glacier, a moody trip-hop burner from Léa Sen, and album highlight, “Halo Trip”, featuring the infectious British charm of Lauren Auder. Vegyn very well might have created the best soundtrack to bridge the gap between the sun setting and the hot summer night that follows since Jamie xx’s In Colour. Prepare to be lifted up, embrace the urge to dance, allow yourself to feel and accept the good along with the bad, and embark on Vegyn’s spiritual journey. All you have to do is drop the needle.

Vegyn is back with his second full length album following 2019’s Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds. Joe Thornalley’s story is well known by now, having cut his teeth with the likes of James Blake, Frank Ocean, and JPEGMAFIA, but the years since his debut have pushed that highly regarded and unique production into myriad exciting directions. The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions crystallises his evolutions of late, both as an inspired label head of PLZ Make It Ruins (George Riley, John Glacier, Headache, Memo Boy etc) as well as a forward thinking artist.

Dark as the title may seem, there’s plenty of vibrant joy to be found on this record. ‘A Dream Goes On Forever’ opens with PLZ protégé John Glacier urging us to remember the good things in life as synths explode in rainbow fountains. It’s a downtempo prayer with imperative chunky drum loops and reversed piano chords that instantly tap into Vegyn’s pastel coloured emotional vein, further eked out with wisping psych guitars, placid rhodes chords, and UK bass in bubblegum flavours.

If anything, The Road To Hell… reveals that Vegyn’s sound was driven by colour and texture all along. Two step rhythms and breaks are dressed in lustre, sharply ticking trap beats and stoic raps on ‘In The Front’ are lifted into the clouds by velvet strings, while each track is permeated by a golden hued haze. ‘The Path Less Travelled’ is awash in vapour, with woozy pianos and synth sparkles swinging on pendulums as they detune, and ‘Last Night I Dreamt I Was Alone’ is gauzy leftfield goodness with effervescent, unpredictable rhythms splicing and chopping over ringtone-like synths. ‘Halo Flip’ is a clear highlight: amidst playful radio bumpers, Lauren Auder muses on cycling through different lives over jubilant synths and strings gushing with an inviting warmth.

Vegyn truly steps things up with his second full length album, a record full of triumphant explorations of various tangents of the myriad subgenre of electronic music. The producer who continues to keep us on our toes and faultlessly supplies the goods.