Astral Bakers return with ‘Vertical Life’, a raw, heartfelt indie album produced by Sam Evian and shaped by unity.
Paris-based quartet Astral Bakers return with ‘Vertical Life’, their highly anticipated second album and the follow-up to 2024’s acclaimed ‘The Whole Story’. Where their debut introduced a soft grunge palette that wove hazy folk with atmospheric rock, ‘Vertical Life’ finds the band moving deeper into cohesion. It stands as a record that defines them not as four separate musicians, but as one unified voice shaping a shared sound.
Recorded in the U.S. with celebrated producer Sam Evian (Big Thief, Blonde Redhead), ‘Vertical Life’ strips away the excess in favor of honesty and immediacy. The album resists overproduction, embracing the raw textures that arise from performance itself. Imperfections are not polished away but woven into the fabric of the record, making each track feel like a page torn from a living, breathing journal.
Across the record, Astral Bakers—Ambroise, Theodora, Nico, and Zoé—step beyond individual spotlights to explore a collective musical language. Guitars shimmer and crackle, basslines offer cinematic grounding, and drums drift between subtle restraint and dreamlike movement. The vocals blend in choral exchanges, fragile and bold all at once, giving space to the dualities that define the group’s sound—introspective yet powerful, raw yet deeply melodic.
Vertical Life’ captures that essence through its dual meaning. The title reflects both the sense of ascent and the sensation of vertigo—the pull between grounding and release. It’s a metaphor that mirrors the emotional balance throughout the album: the tension between self and unity, calm and intensity, earth and air.
With this new project, Astral Bakers affirm their identity as more than a passing collective. They arrive here as a band in full evolution, crafting songs that pulse with authenticity and openness. ‘Vertical Life’ is the sound of four artists reaching higher while staying rooted, translating shared emotion into something tangible and beautifully human.
