Vorhex Angel Readies Drain, Share Slow-Burn Single "Okie’s Song I"

Jake and Jamin Orrall have spent most of their adult life as the noisy, sunburnt core of JEFF The Brotherhood — the Nashville brothers who made fuzzed-out hooks feel inevitable. Their new project, Vorhex Angel, still smells faintly of that ratty touring van, but it’s moving in a different direction: more textural, sometimes quieter, often stranger. This week they released “Okie’s Song I,” a slow-burning rock ‘n’ roll number that feels like a band testing restraint instead of reflexive attack.

Vorhex Angel is Jake and Jamin plus Kunal Prakash of Silver Synthetic, a pairing that first surfaced in live footage a few months back: grainy clips, strobe-ish edits, three bodies onstage trading noise and sweat. That material suggested a hallucinatory power trio. The new single complicates that picture. “Okie’s Song I” is gentle where their live tapes were confrontational — soft guitar sustain, a deliberate beat, a solo that blooms rather than bulldozes.

“It’s the most composed of the songs on Drain,” Jake says. “The lyrics are about the frustration of being caught in a negative pattern, a feedback loop. I remember getting chills hearing Kunal’s solo in playback.”

He isn’t overselling it. Prakash’s solo arrives modestly — a handful of notes that widen into a small canyon — and it does give you that quick, skeptical hair-raise. “I had this group of chords around for a long time and played it with lots of approaches but never shared it live or on a record,” Prakash explains. “I always had a feeling the best way to use it would be with Jake and Jamin when the time was right.” Hearing those chords land with the brothers’ rhythm feels like the payoff of something patient and accumulated.

The Rett Rogers-directed clip for “Okie’s Song I” stitches together a few moods: sunlit rehearsal shots where the three shove amps aside and test harmonies, cutaways to a shadowed stage where colored gels make the trio into silhouettes, and brief archival-feel live fragments that remind you Vorhex Angel can still go loud when they want. It’s a neat reminder that the record is being made by players who know both the value of a brutal riff and the space of a held note.

Drain follows a quick-moving run of releases — Vorhex Angel put out Heavenly in January — and will arrive via Soul Selects on July 8. The band is marking the record with a hometown-adjacent release party on June 13 at The Antique Barn in Hillsborough, NJ, then hitting the Northeast later in July with a short string of dates alongside Luke Schneider.

Tracklist for Drain:

A Prophecy
Weight
Okie’s Song I
Okie’s Song II
Honey
A Spark
The Great Fatted Bull (Stone Tablet #36)

Tour dates:

06/13 Hillsborough, NJ @ The Antique Barn (DRAIN record release party)
07/16 New York, NY @ Trans Pecos*
07/17 Bethlehem, PA @ ClubRealWorld*
07/18 Catskill, NY @ Avalon Lounge*
07/19 Brattleboro, VT @ Epsilon Spires*
07/20 Westfield, MA @ Hutghis*
07/21 New London, CT @ 33 Golden*
07/22 Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts*

* w/ Luke Schneider

Fans who caught Vorhex Angel’s early clips have been split — some want more of the raw, hallucinatory live violence; others are clearly into the patient songwriting displayed on “Okie’s Song I.” Both impulses are valid. What’s most interesting is that the band seems to be courting the tension between them, not choosing a lane. They’re also teasing at least two more albums this year, which reads less like hubris and more like curiosity: how many ways can these three players rework a handful of chords and a mood?

Drain is out 7/8 via Soul Selects. If you follow the brothers from their JEFF days, this feels like a continuation — same instincts, different appetite. If you’re new, start with “Okie’s Song I” and let the solo do the convincing.