Victoryland takes a Victorylap
Victoryland by Micah Bierman
Brooklyn based Victoryland released My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It in late January this year and immediately gained buzz throughout New York. The project was the first full release following frontman Julian McCamman’s departure from Philly punk outfit Blood. The creative control that had previously been absent culminates in a bright, expressive pop album that vividly captures the time and place from which it emerged. Pitchfork acclaim helped push the album to more ears and Victoryland was set for an exciting upcoming set of shows.
In early March, Victoryland had one of their first headline shows following the release of the album at Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg. The show was expectedly sold out, with conversations in the crowd reflecting the buzz seen online. Everyone was eager to hear how this album translated to live performance, as rumblings of “the next LCD Soundsystem” permeated throughout the venue as excitement grew.
As lead singer Julian McCamman stepped on-stage alongside his brother and other bandmates, the group looked poised to deliver a performance that stood up to the hype. As the show progressed, Julian’s face wore the emotions of someone realizing that their music has touched people. The whole crowd lit up and sang back the anthemic lyrics of i got god, “Porn ain’t got what you want, TV ain’t got what you want, Drugs ain’t got what you want.” After this, Julian went quiet and basked in the moment for a second and effused about how weird it was to hear people love and know his music — stating that this was the first time he’d experienced it. The show continued to deliver beyond expectations, capped off with an explosive performance of hit song No Cameras, where the crowd continued to harmonize to every lyric and bounced around to the howling synths.
In the past months, Victoryland has continued to put on shows throughout Brooklyn, with a show at The Hancock in Bed-Stuy that sold-out almost immediately. About a hundred people were packed into the absolute sauna of an A/C-less living room of a historic brownstone. Despite the death-valley adjacent heat, the crowd jumped and bounced like atoms in perpetual motion, belting their favorite lines from each song.
Each song holds memorable lyrics that press on the mundanity of life in the 2020s. We all have an internal guilty voice in our head that acknowledge how “spending money, makes me feel good”, or that our inability to find true fulfillment always leads us back to the fleeting pleasures of drugs, TV and porn. The majority of each track on My Camera is filled with blurry vocals and wailing instrumentation, all to resolve into these moments where the listener almost gets called on their bullshit. When at the shows, fans get a chance to emphatically belt the insecurities that they hold deepest inside themselves.
Just a few weeks later, while the iron was still hot from The Hancock show, Victoryland had their last sold out show at the Sultan Room in Bushwick, and again the crowds were itching to experience this band up-close. Julian would point the mic at the crowd during multiple songs, only letting the crowd sing his songs back to him — a sharp contrast to their earlier shows. This confidence was emblematic of a response to the interactions at the shows, and Victoryland had officially completed a well deserved Victorylap around the city that helped boost this album.
After completing a sold-out three show run throughout New York, Victoryland will depart on tour with the aforementioned LCD Soundsystem. In just 8 months, Victoryland has built enough buzz to join the band he consistently drew comparisons to at the first show at Baby’s All Right. The tour with LCD Soundsystem holds some big step-ups from DIY living room shows in Brooklyn as they are scheduled to play two back-to-back shows at Red Rocks. They’ve developed a strong foothold in Brooklyn and will hopefully collect a new swarm of fans, eager to join the hype-train. As of writing this, Victoryland announced that he will be back for more on September 4th with a show at TV Eye in Ridgewood, likely looking to build on the victories that have littered this whole year.
