A Farewell Device "Before Daylight"

From the Bay Area’s ever shifting patchwork of creative energy, Justin Vanegas has been quietly building the world of A Farewell Device for years. With Before Daylight, his latest EP, he leans into both fragility and experimentation. These songs feel worn in but never predictable. They read like postcards from separate moments, each one orbiting around a center of emotional clarity.

“Help to Lie” opens with a kind of unadorned honesty that caught me off guard. Its straightforward 4/4 beat and strummed guitar chords feel almost humble in their construction, but the effect is disarming. There is something confessional about it, like overhearing someone admit a painful truth in a quiet bar after midnight. The transition into “Jesters and Spies” is seamless, but the mood shifts. Suddenly I am in a different room entirely. This one feels drenched in theatrical fog, with a slow burn that builds into something larger and more ominous. It is shadowy and deliberate, like a scene from a film that never fully resolves.

Then comes “51A,” and everything snaps into motion. The energy is immediate. The drums hit harder, the pace quickens, and for the first time on the EP, it feels like Vanegas is chasing something rather than sitting with it. There is an urgency here that makes it the most immediately gripping track for me. It feels like it was written in one breath.

“Jealous of the Ghosts” strips everything away again. Just Vanegas’s voice and an acoustic guitar. No tricks, no frills. The stillness is the point. It gives the record room to breathe, even if that breath feels heavy.

The EP closes with “Did I Do That?” which lifts the mood without breaking the emotional throughline. It gestures toward bluegrass with a fiddle that threads through the arrangement, but it never fully gives in to genre. The addition of a female vocalist adds warmth and a sense of balance that rounds out the EP in a way that feels complete.

Before Daylight is a restless collection. Each track stands on its own, pulling from different traditions and emotional states, but Vanegas’s songwriting is the thread that holds it together. It is that consistency of voice, more than any stylistic cohesion, that makes this EP feel like a singular statement rather than a scattered experiment.

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