Wax Vessel

02/24/2025

Happy Monday! Today is the day! The debut song and debut video from the debut band LILA is here! A whole lotta new!

The whole album drops this Friday. Preorders go live at 1:00pm CST as well. This album is quickly becoming very near and dear to me, so I can't wait for you to see the fruits of like, half a decade's worth a labor from Nick.

This is really a fun little revivalism offshoot and somehow feels totally grounded in 2025 while drawing heavy from so much 2010s nostalgia. If you like your SABELLA extra downtempo-y, this is for you!

See ya Friday!

LILA - "you better learn how to be alone" off of upcoming EP "you can't fix everything" available on 2/28shot by: LILAedited by: Jake Lepleymix/master: Augus...

02/23/2025

Debut song and video from LILA coming tomorrow. Album preorders and digital release on Friday the 28th. See ya there!

02/22/2025

So! How about this LILA band?? I know there's not a ton to go on yet, but! I tink from a "vines" perspective I know you have to be feeling excited. I wanted to spend today goign over the art a bit, but rest assured - there will be a single and a music video before preorders go up! And the full album drop on the 28th when the records go live!

This is one of those things where I like to have a little fun. Do you trust that a new band from the minds of sabella that's been picked up by WV will be good? I think so! I can;t wait to say I told you so when you hear it!

For the art, I know I'm just coming of an Amy Dury piece for KOASD, but when Nick saw it, he was so smitten. If you know anything about me, you'll know that I will NEVER use a piece of photography for album art. Just not what I'm interested in! And if you use some context clues, I'm sure you can piece together that this was originally the plan. But! nick is a champ and let me have Amy paint over a bunch of immensely personal photographs to use as art. All he panels are now hanging in his house too. Just so cool.

I think it really gives this release a delicate and scream-adjacent vibe. ts a crazy backdrop and weird juxtaposition to the insane musical performance on this. But also it isn't! Search your feelings for how a downtempo band would have to sound to match up to this art, and that's LILA. It's by design!

Just something that I have so much fun doing. Kai killed the logo and layout. The whole thing is expansive and a big insert gatefold. You're really goin to love it in hand!

02/21/2025

Ok! Hello! It's 2025 and we’re in February with the realization of my 2025 dream - more new bands putting out new releases! We;’ve got ourselves a live one! Now, I know a select few of you *might* know a lil ol band called SABELLA - well what if I told you that after doing Dog Daze, Nick and I really got to thinking about what a great next move would be. Well, he ended up telling me about a EP that he had squirreled away in his back pocket, and after a bit of back and forth here we are. I’m so incredibly proud to present LILA - the next chapter in the sabella cinematic universe! Ah!

I promise I’m not going to talk about sabella TOO much, but I do think it serves as a crucial jumping off point, and like, gives a lot of context and anchors this release. Liek without sabella, this could still exist but it would make a lot less sense. It’s the WV extension of “I’ll do a new project, but you have to have done a cool old project first.”. Very high barrier to entry! Nick did it - sabella was something that wa son my list forever, and now I get to see the realization of that dream here with LILA.

As you can tell after 100 releases here, a huge part of my musical identity was the scene between 2011 and like 2015 on Facebook, before deathcore turned to djent. True FB Downtempo a la Yuth, sabella, traitors, etc was really such a fun little misrocasm on the internet and really set up a bunch of talented people to sequester back in to modern music. Like, every band that rock right now wasn’t;t making screams in the 1990s - they were making downtempo in 2011. Such an important scene that it actually launched the first foray in to downtempo revivalism here with HARM.icu. It’s important to me to keep that flame burning, so when something even TOUCHES on the boundary of that type of aesthetic and sound, I’m all in. And here is LILA.

This LILA Ep is absolutely an insane listen. I know I’ve spent a lot of time in the past on like, Outlaw and HARM waxing poetic about how downtempo is a gentlemen’s genre and if you don’t like it yours a fool - well, I’m here to say it again! There is so much here to unpack if you listen in earnest. Yeah, easy to hand wave away because its slow, but the genre and the cited bpm really serves as just a backdrop of vocal delivery. And would you believe that the sabella fella Nick would deliver anything other than super poignant, scrreamo-adjecent performances n a downtempo record? /its WILD>

The instrumentation on “You Can’t Fix Everything” is all low end and feedback. The drums just lull you in to this false sense of security and serve as a cracker in which to deliver the caviar that is the vocals. You Gotta have both! Structure/delivery and the flavor! It’s the yin and yang, push and pull. It’s this fuzz that in simultaneously in your face that just dissolves in to the background and leaves space for just a harrowing vocal performance. Make no mistake - this is a vocal forward band. But they’ve done it in such a charming way that really likes back to like, Introvert. YXVNG. Brothers. Soem of the smaller scale downtempo stuff that was just using simple instrumentation to convert tone and leaving the content to the vocals.
The difference here is that it approaches instrumentation from like, an emo/scremao perspective. The production doesn’t;t have this synthetic shine. There is no pretension. It’s almost “clean”. And just give all this breadth to the vocals. Just an incredible earnest debut. It’s 15 miniyse that you’re really goin to listen to a few times for it to click, and once it does you won’t be able to put it down.

It has this meandering pace that just kind of pulls you along liek a lazy river. The same way you kind of zone out in a Primitive Man record is the sensation of whats happening here. You have this wall of texture and feedback, this clang and RONK of the craziest downtrend stuff. But then it keeps opening up to give space to these insane vocal performances. You catch a lyric. YOu get introspective. You listen harder. YOu get lulled back to a trance. I don’t know man, it’s crazy how much they are doing with this formula. It couldn’t;t be any other band besides a downtempo band. This is a slightly more inaccessible version of sabella, so in turn, I think it makes it more accessible to like -core people. Just give it a listen!

Art was once again handled by Amy Dury, who you might remember from the KOASD art! Nick had a collection of incredibly personal photos from his childhood, so it was a really project to capture this vibe on this EP through the lens of what Amy does with paint. Just really delicate and gives it this kind of quaint and delicate I hate to keep calling downtempo screamo but like, if it walks liek a duck! The way this has been presented is so intentional. I think the album art if the first layer of information on how you should approach this material tbh.

Logo was done by Lab.13, as was the layout. Big gatefold insert in here. Just packed with tons of content and photos. Big paintings by Amy throughout.

In short, this is an incredibly earnest record that couldn’t;t be presented in any other way. FFO sabella but with no folk-y parts. FFO harrowing lyricism and feedback drenched walls of bass.

This one time pressing is presented across 350 copies:

50 Unfinished Paintings (Wax Vessel Signature) �
50 You Better Learn How to Be Alone (Wax Vessel Signature)
�50 Warning (Wax Vessel Signature)
50 The Lake Begins to Thaw (Wax Vessel Signature) �
50 Tab (Wax Vessel Signature)
100 Press Eject 180g Natural PVC

All of this housed in:
1.5x thickness Matte gatefold jackets
Double sided gatefold matte full color insert
Black polylined innersleeves
Gold foil numbering
Stuffed into polybags
Hype Sticker’d
Custom WV Mailers
Matching WV Album art sticker

Orders for this go up on Friday the 28th at 1:00pm CST. This will be a preorder, and will ship in 2025. Merch is coming too.

As the economy and scene begin to change, all releases will be handled on a case by case basis. Nick is in agreement with me on this one - this is a bespoke, passion-filled EP and it doesn’t;t need to be universally available. 350 copies, with some being cheaper. No open preorder. No CDs, no tapes. Grab a record. ��LILA will be hitting the road in 2025, so join me in setting them up for a tour as best as I know how! Grab a record and stay tuned for more!

02/19/2025

Even though the harsh vocal to clean vocal ratio is way too fu**ed for this to be something I myself would put out, you can’t deny that this album is fu***ng crazy.

Keep your eyes peeled for yet another project from some of these guys coming to WV soon-ish? Who knows! But in the meantime, it’s cool to see Silverback Gorilla Records breaking some new smaller acts for the culture here.

Function as form, your thoughts are the sword. Bleak is the advent arrival of fire! Function as form, your thoughts are the sword. Nourishing springs, the still peace of the water!

We are back this Friday at 1 PM EST with the gang! If you don't know, they dropped their debut record, "Unification As An Art," earlier this year in January. It is an absolute wild 28 minute mathcore ride full of mind melting riffs!
FFO: The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Arsonists Get All The Girls, Reflections.

Spread across three gorgeous handmades and an alternate artwork jacket, these records are produced by our favorites at and . Gorgeous matte jackets, foil numbering on the back, you already know the drill!

We appreciate your patience in allowing us to do these handmade spreads. We know the wait isn't fun, but the records always are! See ya this Friday at 1 PM for the drop 🦍

Vinyl art and layout:
Alternate artwork:

02/18/2025

Just wanted to stop in and do a little 2025 state of the union! For the most part things have remained pretty unchanged and consistent. I do feel a little bit of pressure and friction when the releases are over $100 or if the bands are very niche. It’s with that in mind that I’m making a few small changes that you will start to see with Friday’s release:

- some releases will be out of 250, but all sigs
- some new releases will not have an open preorder, but instead a fix amount of 180g PVC at a discounted price.

That’s pretty much it. For something that’s a bigger release, its business as normal. It’s just when I get into my smaller kind of passion projects that we might see something change with the handmade structure.

In a market where it seems to just be a race to see who can license the biggest titles without any real care or intention, i think dropping WV back into hardcore collector mode with reduced units on some titles will bridge the gap.

Anyway. Not doom and gloom! I still think the vast majority of releases will go unchanged. Even in current year, everything is still $100 and selling out if not within the same hour than the same day. Still a lot of power in the Wax Vessel engine here. I’m excited for everyone to see what I’ve got cooking for you on Friday!

02/17/2025

Happy Monday! Have a big shipping week this week and weekend. Thank for the patience on Casket Dealer merch, the flags were caught up in that Trump China tariff thing so that kind of derailed a few things here. Should have everything good to go and ready to ship momentarily.

Rebalance stuff has started moving, and The Heartland will go out this weekend. There might also be a surprise mini rebalance in the next few days. All sigs or one release that was supposed to be allocated for Europe but never materialized!

The Sawtooth Grin should also be shipping to me this week so that will ship in the month of February. I’m not sure if it’ll be bundled with The Boy Will Drown but my goal is to have both of those shipped in February here still.

I was told that December and January we’re gonna be kind of gangbusters and I think that ended up not really being the case so I apologize for getting everyone’s hopes up on the timeline, but it appears to just be regular! Anyway!

This Friday we have the first Wax Vessel debut of the year. Brand new band, brand, new album, brand new everything. It’s really not like anything. I’ve put out yet. I really think you’re gonna enjoy it.

02/14/2025

Happy Valentines Day sweet people of the WV corner do the internet! I hope you bought your significant other some flowers and also had some flowers bought for you! What a beautiful day!

Obviously I’m a ham-fisted weirdo so The Heartland had to be on Valentines. I figured you could use a break from the beauty of Valentines and could enjoy a little beauty of the record variety! Two American Kids is here, looking great, and shipping ASAP!

Once you get a chance to really examine all of the artwork in hand, you’ll see how delicate everything is and that really informed a lot of the color palette. I am a color wave guy so I knew I wanted to have one of those to kind of capture the whole spectrum and continue on with the rainbow motif that’s kind of tied through all the other others. Everything else I really just wanted to be classic meat and potatoes great variants.

I’m so lucky to have been able to work with The Heartland on three albums over the course of six years. They had a release in every major era of Wax Vessel, and I’m so happy I get to do one in current year where they can have a ton of great looking records and also make a ton of money. They deserve it almost more than anyone. They were there in the early days where records got stolen and didn’t get shipped and were generally short changed.

This is my grand sendoff to where it all started. The perfect debut on absolutely gorgeous records with great art. Sounds great, looks great. Full circle.

These go on sale today at 1:00pm CST. Thanks for grabbing one!

02/11/2025

ICYMI: remasters for The Heartland are up on the Bandcamp! These will be available on drop day, but if you want a little taste of how it’s gonna sound take a listen!

Not that I don’t think the originals had a lot of charm , but Zach over at Third Eye Studios really was able to bring a lot out of these. I think it’s absolutely a substantial remastered job and if you are used to listening to this on YouTube you’re going to be SHOCKED!

The records drop Friday at 1 PM CST. Stay tuned for photos of all of the records before drop!

8 track album

02/10/2025

Happy Monday! Huge update! Paul Misko aka Paul Misko from From A Second Story Window and Robinson had a podcast. I got to be on episode #10. Watch me join the ranks of like, real musicians and industry guys, haha. Insane that he let me just talk for over two hours on this one!

Go find “Riff Tacos” wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe. Check it out on YouTube if you want to see me on the floor in a baby’s room with a big pimple on my forehead!

Nik Velleca is the founder of Wax Vessel, a record label dedicated to high-quality, small-run, one-time-only vinyl presses crafted for collectors. Focused on...

02/08/2025

Did you see? Did you see it? It's The Heartland again! It's Two American Kids Growing Up! Ah!

If you need some additional context on why I love this EP, please scroll back one post! But for today, I really wanted to just take a moment to celebrate di7ide for these amazing panels. Just pure nostalgia and and cool retro flavor! The whole packaging is so chopped and screwed from Lab 13 and is just such a fun little presentation.

I wanted something that evoked the original kind of collage-feel on the Hoagland stuff, but have this kind of soft 50/60s nuclear vibe. Like at a glance this could be a classic screamo cover or something - it really does not have a modern vibe! I just think it's so delicate and cool. I think it's fun to like, take something liek this Kids material and give it some art that can NOW be immediately identified.

Anyway. Tons of these panels were used and chopped up all along this artwork. It's such an interesting layout and very asymmetrical and weird! I can't wait for you to take a look in person! See ya on Valentine's Day!

02/07/2025

I have a lot other say on this album, but the chipper spirit that it's voiced through definitely feels out of place given the recent passing of Brian, the vocalist of The Heartland. Just so sad that this has to become an eulogy of sorts. I'll leave it how I had it written, but the big thing I would like to impart today is that this one is for Brian. RIP. Long live The Heartland.

Sometimes it just works - years of planning and it happened! There perfect drop! The Heartland is BACK and their incredible debut is here and IN HAND on Valentines Day! The stars aligned!

Drop schedule notwithstanding, I really ma SO excited to have The Heartland bak for a third time. If you are not a WV OG, you might not know that The Heartland was the SECOND EVER WV release - like I’m talking early enough type of release where their copies actually got stolen and didn’t get shipped out. Where they made like, $100 and Creep made me do 20 test presses. They were there during the WV growing pains, and I thought the ultimate reward for that vote of trust would be doing Frontier in early 2021. Little did I know that WV would be around for ANOTHER four years after that, and an OG10 band could really experience the power of the modern WV machine. Nothing makes me happier than being bale to like, work with one of my favorite bands again and give them the benefit of now 6 years of growth.

Since I got my third chance here with Two American Kids, I knew I really wanted to leave no stone unturned. No mechanic unexplored. No production left on the table! Two American Kids growing Up [In The Heartland] completes an amazing like, reverse order discography from one of my favorites. Make no mistake, I’m a “Stars” guy through and through - so much so that like, after WV001 dropped (which was a play of circumstance) the first project of like, my own choosing - of my wildest dreams, was Stars. And at the time that Frontier was being explored (ha!) I didn’t;t think the platform was in a place to handle the crazy, lo-fi, grindy spastic little brother to stars, haha.

This album is like, honestly peak millennium grind demo. It’s the ultimate expression of early 2000s mathcore - before matcher became a dirty word or just meant sweep picking and trombone solos. Its my favorite type of WV release, and my favorite type of early work - its the earliest versions of all the best songs on Stars. It gives all this context to one of the best math sassy grindy albums ever made. That “dun dun” opening riff on Blue Period changed the world. It’s this playful orchestration with insane shrieks and the most spastic noodly guitar. There is so much flow and and it just feels so emotive and raw. Like don’t get me wrong, there’;s a reason that Stars is the big dawg (I love some polish on my debuts, SUE ME) but I think hearing all of the best songs from Stars in this kind of more stripped back and raw context makes them feel more human and artful? Sometimes you do want to see the sausage get made! Liek they were just little babies! They made this s**t in like 2006!

There was nothing at the time (or even in th eimmediate after) that sounded liek this. The highs are just so piercing, but its juxtaposed with like, instrumentation that is *legible* which is so rare. Even on these early recordings, everyone tis CLEAR and LEGIBLE and has so much breathing room. The lows are guttural - way more so than you’d expect a little white belt sceeeny weeny band to have. YOu get all the “MySpace” overtones in a presentation that is just pure fun. I’m telling you, you forget how HARD this album is, haha. I know a lot of things have been watered down and become tropes because of all this revivalism of the past 10 years, but this material just doesn’t;t sound liek anything else. The Heartland is wholly their own band, commanding their own sound.

Like how many times do I have to write out “wow I love the mathy overtones on this sassy grind record!” In reference to Heartland material. Like, its the third one. You get it. I get it. I’m trying to give some context for this one specifically - if you don’t know what they sound liek at this point, you’re just goin to have to suffer! I don’t know what to tell you! The Heartland rocks, they’re back, its arguably their coolest material. FFO: The Heartland. Lore. Peak MySpace vibes. Deep Cuts. Walks on the Beach. Sunsets. The human condition.

I think the original art is so all over the place, it really gave an awesome opportunity to create something out of left field for this. I finally get to do something weird for the heartland! As much as I love recreating covers, it was so much fun to inject this with a little more abstraction. I wanted something of course not he nose (I’m a ham) so like, “The Heartland” and “two American Kids” was def evoking like, nuclear family. Atomic era. 50a and 60s print. Its the soft, delicate collection of panels that juxtaposed with this crazy logo and insane collage job by Kai at Lab.13. It feels like a turn of the millennium collage job but it has a modern refinement to it as well. Really impressed by the art that di7ide was able to create for this! Plus the color palette really lended itself to some cool records - I really wanted them to have a full tilt WV experience here!

Audio was once again. Handled by Zach over at Third Eye Studios. You might recognize his work from the other two album by The Heartland! But in an even more fun twist (and personal milestone as an Ohio boy) this material was actually originally done by Joey Sturgis lmao. The culture! The lore! WV has a Sturgis! This thing sounds great - you don’t have to listen on YouTube anymore!

These are in hand and ready to ship. Orders go live this valentine’s Day at 1:00pm CST! Don;t miss your chance to own a piece of WV and scene history! Thank you again to the fellas in The Heartland for the three-peat! I can’t wait for you to hear and see this!

50 The Sig Did Not Produce a Shadow (Wax Vessel Signature)
50 It’s Your Haunted Sig, You Drag it (Wax Vessel Signature)
50 $150 Worth of Sigs (Wax Vessel Signature)
50 Sig Elanious (Wax Vessel Signature)
100 A Handmade Makes a Cameo Appearance

All of this housed in:
1.5x thickness Matte gatefold jackets
Double sided matte full color insert
Black polylined innersleeves
Gold foil numbering
Stuffed into polybags
Hype Sticker’d
Custom WV Mailers
Matching WV Album art sticker

Orders for this go up on Friday the 14th at 1:00pm CST. 300 copies.

02/06/2025

Incredible tragic day in the The Heartland and WV world. Brian, vocalist for The Heartland has passed. I’m hoping there will be a GoFundMe or something in the coming days - please keep an eye out.

If you have something nice to say, please stop over on the instagram. Just incredibly sad.

02/04/2025

Been a long few years! Not sure if I’ve mentioned it already (😩) but this is WV year #6! And the next release will be release 100! Gah!

Been thinking a lot about where it all began. Yes, Destroyer Destroyer was #1 - but that was like, less me “choosing” and more “I want to do that!” You know? The Heartland was the first band where it’s like, “hey I’m doing a vinyl thing you should do this album with me!”

That “yes” really started a crazy chain reaction, haha. Not that that comes in to play or contextualizes anything that’s happens later this week! Just feeling nostalgic!

02/03/2025

Hello! A little Monday update!

Thanks again to everyone who grabbed something on the rebalance! I think I’m just going to keep it to one a year - seems more fun! I’ll see ya in 2026 for the next one!
Nick is in the process of organizing and getting these all shipped out. Between Casket Dealer merch, the rebalance, the next insta arriving and The Sawtooth Grin shipping we have a busy few weekends here. Thanks for the patience!

On that note, new announcement this Friday! In hand drop. Up on Valentine’s Day! Sawtooth is on press right now, and should be assembled and shipped by the end of the week? Early next week? Certainly will be a double ship weekend in there somewhere.

The Boy Will Drown is on press next, and then Hereisaropegoodluck! I think I will have a huge bite taken out of the outstanding pre-orders this month. The good news is everything still does seem to be hovering around that eight or nine month mark, so expect that to continue.

Lastly, there will be a brand new release from a brand new band coming up at the end of the month! It will also be the debut of a slightly new mechanic for new releases. This release is a very small, very intimate type of set up, so I think it’ll make a lot of sense.

Other than that, we are trucking along! As always, if you need to update your address or anything or are curious when things are gonna ship just check the website. It’s going to be a fun couple of months here so thanks for tuning in!

01/30/2025

We are on the eve of greatness! The first rebalance in a long long time happens tomorrow at 1 PM CST. We’ve got a ton of copies and a ton of sigs. There will even be a separate button for PVC copies at the cheapest I’ve ever sold records. I’m ready to start off 2025 with no boxes of shipping mishap holdback!

As I mentioned earlier, there will be a healthy amount of Member Mages AND Test Presses mixed in. The ratio of sig-to-not-sig is over 30% if you don’t count PVC.

No limits! Buy as many as you want. If you get multiple and one order, there won’t be any repeats. But I’m not going back through your order history to make sure whatever you buy is like your only copy of something. You might end up with something you already have! But they’re cheap! Give one to a friend! Trade one! Have fun!

See ya tomorrow!

01/29/2025

Insane day. Insane band. Insane lore. Silverback Gorilla Records pulled it off and got Extortion. Like, as a guy from Chicago that grew had their formative years during the numetalcore/beatdown era, this one is absolutely top of the list. It really started it all.

In terms of culture. Thankfully the SGR guys have obliged and I will be getting a variant of this when it ships. Will be exactly like Surgeon - alt jackets, stickers, collab hype sticker, etc. full WV production for my 50 copies.

Really excited for this one. Love this album, and if you’re not familiar go listen and then you’ll get why I love Outlaw so much haha.

We’re jumping a few numbers back in the catalog, something that’s taken a long time to plan to make this as special as possible. We proudly present on a massive spread for their first EP, Extortion. This is a deep cut for those of you who have been around since day 1 for them. We’ve included a lot of art reimagined from Kai to really give this a modern take. As well as art from .dyingwish from the original CD release.

Extortion has not been on physical media since 2019 and what better way to bring it back than on vinyl for the first time.

These will be the only 4 variants available, one time only. We will not be releasing more of this EP, so please make sure to be on time/early, once it’s gone that’s it. 3 handmade variants and a special alternate jacket. You read that right, the alternate cover will be its own matte jacket, foil stamped and all.

This one is going to be a long wait, expect it towards the fall. With this many handmade copies comes a long wait and a price tag attached. We appreciate you taking the wait on these preorders and we’ll continue to put out the best possible spreads for the bands we work with. Your patience contributes to that!

This Friday 1/31 at 1pm EST. Well seen you then.

Skeleton Youth Forever and Ever…

01/28/2025

Just a lil update for those keeping track! Casket Dealer merch is effectively done, and that *should* be shipping this weekend! I know we said January shipping, so we're cutting it close as always, haha.

As far as new merch, I think we will have some stuff in march? Just not a super merch-heavy year this year tbh. Nick is a busy boy! Plus the record schedule is so booked it's hard to find spots to shoehorn some merch in. But! I will say that there is a legacy band coming back to do some merch in March!

Anyone from the catalog you really want to see some merch for? I have a general idea of who I want to hit, but if it turns out everyone int he world wants a quarter zip for Kids on Crack like ok! Let me know!

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