Virgin Orchestra - LET IT BURN

For many bands, the addition of strings to a song is meant to imbue weight and a certain cinematic, sweeping quality to a song. Often it comes off as needlessly grandiose, or performatively complex. Not so for Virgin Orchestra: one of the three members is a classically trained cellist and brings a persistent, dynamic orchestral quality to the melancholic post-punk of the Reykjavik trio.

Virgin Orchestra’s second EP LET IT BURN (out May 22) is stunning, almost overwhelming in its richness and depth. Each listen reveals more — more subtle details, more layered production, more atmospherics. The record is a lusher, darker expansion on the sound and themes explored in 2023’s Fragments.

Virgin Orchestra comprises Rún Árnadóttir (cello), Stefanía Pálsdóttir (bass and vocals), and Starri Holm (guitar). They combine classical, electronic, shoegaze and post-punk influences to create something that defies genre — immersive, intimate and explosive. The songs on this release feel like an off-kilter soundtrack to a vivid lucid dream, or a score for a lost David Lynch film.

LET IT BURN is accessible, alluring and abosorbing. It often sounds like a classic trip-hop record, reminiscent of early Hooverphonic. Opener”Venus in Scorpio” builds slowly with lo-fi beats and melancholy strings, layering on Stef’s urgent vocal that mourns a doomed relationship with evocative language: “One leg out the door / the other one wrapped around my waist”.

Those elements are present in different measure on each song on LET IT BURN. “Undertow” uses industrial percussion and piano to build a gentle yet foreboding atmosphere, while the lead single “Banger” is exactly that – a darkly danceable, guitar-led banger, and the band sounds something like a female-fronted version of The Cure. “The Pathetic Song” is an off-balance exploration of self-doubt and infatuation that spirals into a discordant and broken down version of itself over its’ five-and-a-half minute runtime.

Over 28 minutes, the six songs on LET IT BURN span genres while maintaining a sweeping, dynamic sound, drawing influence from ubiquitous shoegaze and post-punk acts like My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division. In the band’s Backstory they discuss some of the deeper influences, including classical music composers and a former bandmate of Nick Cave.

What makes LET IT BURN linger is not just its technical prowess or genre-blurring ambition, but its emotional clarity. Virgin Orchestra channel longing, vulnerability, and transformation into music that feels both deeply personal but expansive and universal. Each track is a plunge into deep waters, with moments of punk intensity and orchestral beauty.