SPILL MUSIC PREMIERE: VELOCITY MADE GOOD – “COMING UP THREES”

VELOCITY MADE GOOD – “COMING UP THREES”

A SPILL EXCLUSIVE MUSIC PREMIERE

Groningen-based electronic rock duo Velocity Made Good are back with “Coming Up Threes,” landing July 3rd as the second single from their forthcoming EP Big Breakers, due October 16th, 2026.

The track moves like it’s trying to escape something. A four-on-the-floor pulse hammers underneath, synths are pushed into the red, and the vocals seem to fight just to stay audible above the wreckage — the sound of being swept along by something far bigger than you, and refusing, even so, to let go.

On the title and the story behind it, the band says:

“‘Coming Up Threes’ is claustrophobic, sweaty and mean, about the quiet resentment of always being an afterthought, framed by an old sailor’s myth. Tales tell of men overboard coming up three times before disappearing in the depths. It’s a reference to ‘If I Fall from Grace with God’ by The Pogues, a song about the unwanted British occupation of Ireland. As Frisians, we know that feeling — every country has its capital, and every capital has a way of making the rest of the country feel like a footnote. We find ourselves in the longing of the Irish.”

“Coming Up Threes” picks up where already released lead single “Big Breakers” left off. That track, out since May 8th, turned drummer Wytse Dijkstra’s long-running insecurities about his own playing into the EP’s opening statement, and marked the first time vocals had appeared on a VMG release — recorded with producer Josh Baxter of PVA inside a derelict school in the band’s hometown.

That same building shaped the whole Big Breakers EP. Analogue synths were run through amplifiers loud enough to rattle the windows, then reamped so the room’s own shake bled back into the recordings. Baxter, who also produced the rest of the EP, pushed the monitors to window-rattling volumes from the very first session. What began as disorienting quickly became the record’s defining quality — a physical directness that a purely electronic record could never achieve. The studio’s limitations stopped being a weakness and became a signature.

Velocity Made Good were formed out of an extreme low point. Synth player and vocalist Thomas Venema had just been dumped. Their previous band had just ended. A holiday to the Frisian Wadden Island of Vlieland was already booked. The two childhood friends went anyway, and somewhere on the ferry back to the mainland, staring out at open water, something clicked. A few weeks later, they were out on a small sailing boat with microphones strapped to the mast and modular synthesisers stowed in the hull. That trip became their debut EP. The sea has never really left their music since — even as the sound has grown louder, heavier, and more certain of itself.

Raised on the rumble of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and shaped later by the electronic precision of LCD Soundsystem and The Chemical Brothers, VMG found a way to make those two worlds collide on stage — dissolving the distance between band and audience until every show became an inevitable escalation. When touring finally stopped, the pressure to articulate something new brought its own weight: Is it still any good? Can we actually do this? What do we even have to say, and who is waiting to hear it?

The answer came sharply, in about ten minutes, walking onto the grounds of the Paradigm festival in Groningen. The two looked at each other and said it simultaneously: they were a rock band. Not an electronic live act with rock influences. A rock band. As producer Josh Baxter put it: “The releases before were about you as musicians. This EP is your statement as artists.”

“Coming Up Threes” is out on all streaming platforms from July 3rd. The Big Breakers EP follows on October 16th.

Velocity Made Good
Big Breakers
(Independent)
Release Date: October 16, 2026

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Background Photo Credit: Lennard Fapma