The Van Pelt

The Van Pelt surfaced on the fringes of the 1990s emo landscape, mirroring certain peers through ethereal, resonant guitar textures and shifting emotional intensities yet standing apart through vocalist/guitarist Chris Leo’s oblique lyrical lens and his singular vocal style that alternated between half-sung phrases and spoken delivery. Active from 1993 to 1997, the group produced two albums before dissolving soon after issuing their second LP, The Sultans of Sentiment, an effort that would later earn retrospective praise. Members promptly launched separate endeavors, though the Van Pelt reconvened from time to time, staging multiple reunion performances until a full return in 2017 that paved the way for the 2023 album Artisans & Merchants—their first collection of original material since the prior century.

The band coalesced in New York City in 1993. Fronted by Chris Leo, formerly the singer and guitarist of Native Nod, the original lineup comprised Brian Maryanski on guitar, Sean Greene on bass, and Neil O’Brian on drums. Their debut album, Stealing from Our Favorite Thieves, emerged on Gern Blandsten in 1996 and secured modest college-radio traction, climbing to number 39 on the Gavin college radio charts; subsequent regional and national tours expanded their reach within the collegiate underground.

Sean Greene exited and was succeeded on bass by Toko Yasuda of Blonde Redhead. With this revised roster, the Van Pelt delivered their follow-up, The Sultans of Sentiment, again via Gern Blandsten in 1997, shifting emphasis toward layered textures and the elaboration of melodic fragments first heard on the debut while Yasuda’s presence encouraged leaner, more minimal arrangements. The group disbanded in 1997 after limited touring in support of that record. Maryanski and O’Brian joined assorted East Coast projects, whereas Leo and Yasuda formed the Lapse later that year, extending certain stylistic threads established by the Van Pelt.

Occasional reunions followed in subsequent years, among them two concerts in 2009 and a performance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in London in 2014. That same year they released Imaginary Third, an eight-song set of recordings made in 1997 and 1998 by both the Van Pelt and the Lapse. In 2017, exactly twenty years after their initial breakup, the original members Leo, O’Brian, Greene, and Maryanski reformed completely. Their proper third album, Artisans & Merchants, appeared in 2023; its nine tracks constituted the band’s first new music in more than twenty-five years.