In 2017, Gabriel Walsh, under the long-running project The Earthly Frames took on an incredibly ambitious project under the title: “Rainbow Table”. With the seven colors of the rainbow together with black and white, he uses music to explore chromatic landscapes, each time crafting a concept album that challenges the listener.
2025 pushes this project into a new color: “Vanity Pressing” is the violet installment that marries Walsh’s longtime appetite for experimental textures with elements of radio-friendly pop music. He’s joined on this album by guest vocalists Shirley Kudirka, Aloysius Fortune, Katherine Koherence, and Busayo Oninla.
The record kicks off with “Thought Rays,” a single that could’ve passed itself off as a standard pop hit if it wasn’t for the electronic soundscapes and vocal distortion.
This is a common theme across the album, with “Gallows Girls” also featuring retro-futuristic synths and lightly mechanical vocal processing.
“Birthday Effect” is the other track released as a single, and changes up concepts in the form of a heartbreaking ballad that laments the endless march of time. This single uses ethereal vocal layering and demonstrates Walsh’s new inclination for lush, radio-ready sonics without erasing his experimental fingerprints.
In addition to musical experimentation, this album shows off Walsh’s abilities as a thinker and a songwriter, as he masterfully pairs melancholy with sharp wit. The record interrogates self-image, spectacle, and solipsism while balancing confessional lines with moments of abstract, imagistic phrasing.
Fans of Walsh’s more adventurous work will find plenty to admire, as the conceptual throughline of the Rainbow Table remains. However, the record’s willingness to flirt with pop structures makes it more accessible to the average listener, and there’s bound to be something here that suits your vibe.
Overall, Vanity Pressing is a confident, listenable entry in Gabriel Walsh’s project. It’s smartly produced, emotionally truthful, and still strange enough to stand out. It proves The Earthly Frames can expand toward pop without losing the weird, literate sensibility that has long been the project’s hallmark.