Australia is about to witness something no other audience in the world has seen.
On Wednesday, June 24, VINDICTA will walk onto the stage at The Gov in Adelaide for their first ever live performance. From there, The Reckoning Tour will continue through Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane before the band carries its dark theatrical vision onward to Japan and Europe.
It is an ambitious beginning for an international band whose public story is still being written. Yet speaking with vocalist Grace Pasturini and guitarist Amber Maldonado, it becomes clear that VINDICTA has not been built around careful industry calculations or another hollow attempt to sell mystery. It has been born from necessity, resilience and the desire to create something that belongs to the musicians bringing it to life.
VINDICTA may present an elaborate world of mythology, corpse paint and ritual onstage, but the people beneath those characters are no longer expected to disappear.
Grace performs as Lilith. Amber becomes Lamia. Those archetypes remain important pieces of the band’s visual language, but they exist as extensions of the musicians rather than replacements for them.
That distinction sits at the heart of everything VINDICTA represents.
Australia Will Witness the Beginning
There is something beautifully appropriate about VINDICTA staging their first performance in Adelaide, the City of Churches.
A band built around dark ceremony, mythic figures and cinematic metal will begin its live existence inside a city carrying one of Australia’s most recognisable religious nicknames. It could almost have been planned as another piece of the mythology.
For Grace and Amber, however, the excitement extends beyond the symbolism. Neither artist has toured Australia before, and their first journey here will also mark the beginning of VINDICTA as a physical live band.
Grace described the scale of it with understandable excitement. The band is not beginning somewhere comfortable or familiar. Its first tour is taking place on the opposite side of the world, immediately launching VINDICTA onto an international stage.
“We’re already taking over the world,” she joked, capturing both the enormity and the surreal energy surrounding the moment.
Australia’s place at the beginning of the story is also deeply connected to the support the musicians received during one of the most difficult periods of their careers.
When the previous chapter collapsed publicly, fans did not simply move on to the next name or image. They rallied around the musicians. Promoters also responded by supporting the people audiences had formed a genuine connection with.
That response was not something Grace or Amber expected.
They had prepared themselves for resistance, uncertainty and an uphill fight to be heard. Instead, messages of encouragement arrived from around the world. That support helped push them towards releasing new music, forming VINDICTA and continuing the work they were not ready to abandon.
Australia did not merely become the first stop on a tour schedule. Australia helped make the next chapter possible.
Real Artists, Real Experiences
When asked what value needed to exist at the centre of VINDICTA from its first day, the answer came immediately.
Authenticity.
For Amber, VINDICTA had to represent the actual musicians and their real creative instincts. The new band could not be another situation where everything was dictated, scripted or separated from the people expected to perform it.
“Real artists, real experience, nothing scripted,” Amber explained. “What you see is what you get.”
That does not mean VINDICTA has abandoned storytelling, theatre or carefully constructed artistic ideas. The band is still developing a defined concept, complete with characters, costumes and a larger visual world.
The difference is where those ideas come from.
When something is scripted within VINDICTA, it comes from the creativity of the artists involved. The musicians are not simply being fitted into an outside concept designed to sell a predetermined brand. They are actively shaping the music, mythology and performance themselves.
As Grace put it, even when the presentation is theatrical, the intention remains sincere.
That sincerity is what allows audiences to connect with something that might initially appear supernatural or otherworldly. Beneath the paint, blood and ceremony are recognisable human emotions: anger, pain, determination, freedom and the need to reclaim ownership of one’s own voice.
“Art is, at the end of the day, a human thing,” Grace said.
It is perhaps the clearest summary of VINDICTA’s philosophy.
The People Behind Lilith and Lamia
VINDICTA continues to use mythic onstage identities, but there is no attempt to hide the musicians behind them.
Grace Pasturini is recognised as the vocalist who transforms into Lilith for the performance. Amber Maldonado is the guitarist who steps into Lamia beneath the lights.
The characters allow both women to reveal aspects of themselves that may not naturally emerge in everyday life.
For Amber, Lamia is not a fabricated personality disconnected from who she really is. She is another side of Amber given the space to become visible.
Away from the stage, Amber can appear youthful and approachable. In costume, she can become frightening, confrontational and openly angry. Guitar in hand, Lamia allows her to access emotions and physical expressions that ordinary life does not always provide room for.
Grace views Lilith in a similar way. The character highlights a facet of who she already is rather than replacing her with something artificial.
They are not disappearing into masks. They are revealing different parts of themselves through them.
That helps explain why the characters have connected so strongly with audiences. Grace and Amber are not acting out empty roles. The intensity comes from somewhere real.
VINDICTA can preserve mystery without erasing authorship. The archetypes can remain larger than life while the musicians receive the recognition and creative voice they deserve.
“The Face of the Clown” Breaks the Silence
VINDICTA’s debut single, “The Face of the Clown,” carried more weight than the average first release.
It had to introduce the band’s sound, announce its visual identity and provide the first real indication of what the musicians wanted VINDICTA to become. It also carried the emotional pressure accumulated during the experiences that preceded the band.
For Grace, that history lives inside the vocals. Her performance channels the emotional weight of what the musicians endured without reducing the song to a literal retelling of events.
Amber described the track as the release of tension that had been steadily building. Frustration, anger and the feeling of being exploited had continued to grow until the musicians finally had the opportunity to express their own perspective.
“The Face of the Clown” became that release.
Musically, the single also begins opening the door to the band’s wider influences. VINDICTA carries the large choruses and commanding energy of classic heavy metal, but Amber is equally interested in the modern production choices found throughout contemporary metal.
The glitching rhythmic cuts heard around the song’s breakdown reflect her interest in bands such as Falling in Reverse and I Prevail. These are creative choices that might not have found their way into the music previously, but VINDICTA now allows each member’s individual tastes to become part of the collective sound.
That freedom means nothing is automatically excluded.
The band can become heavier, darker, more melodic, more atmospheric or more experimental whenever the song demands it.
Reclaiming Familiar Songs
The Australian performances will not be built around one released VINDICTA single alone.
The set will combine new original material with selected songs previously performed by the members, including material associated with Gospel I. Those songs will now be presented through VINDICTA’s renewed sound and concept.
This is not simply a matter of replaying familiar material under a different name.
Grace and Amber are approaching those songs with greater creative freedom and without the pressure of adhering to rigid scripts or predetermined behaviour. The result, they believe, will be more immersive, interactive and intense.
The structures listeners recognise may remain, but the emotional relationship between the performers and the material has changed.
The members can now respond naturally to one another onstage. Amber can turn towards Rusalka or Lilith and share a genuine moment rather than execute something because it was required. The musicians can enjoy the performance, react instinctively and allow their chemistry to become part of the spectacle.
That freedom should not make the live show less focused. VINDICTA still has a clear artistic vision.
What changes is the sense of ownership behind it.
The selected songs are entering a world created by the musicians now performing them. They can breathe differently, hit harder and evolve into something that feels connected to where those artists stand today.
Different Minds Building One Sound
Creating music across multiple countries presents obvious challenges.
VINDICTA’s members must navigate time zones, exchange files remotely and develop ideas without always occupying the same room. Sometimes one member arrives with a demo and the others begin adding their perspectives. At other times, songs grow through a digital exchange of parts, reactions and revisions.
The process can be difficult, but the diversity within the band has become one of its strengths.
Grace, Amber and guitarist Patri Grief come from different musical backgrounds. Each hears possibilities the others may not immediately recognise. One person’s idea can be reshaped by another member approaching it from an entirely different musical language.
Those differences can occasionally create friction, but Amber does not see that as a weakness. The clash itself can generate something none of them would have created individually.
VINDICTA is not attempting to flatten those influences into a safe middle ground. The band is discovering what happens when those different minds are allowed to collide.
The First Chapter of Something Bigger
VINDICTA may currently have only one officially released single, but considerably more is already taking shape behind it.
Grace revealed that the band plans to release additional singles through the coming months. An album is also in development, with Amber estimating that the writing is approximately one third complete.
The goal is to have the record ready around the end of 2026, although early 2027 remains possible as the band continues building its infrastructure, touring schedule and creative direction.
That urgency reflects the unusual way VINDICTA came together.
The band was not formed through years of private planning followed by a carefully scheduled launch. It emerged rapidly because the musicians received overwhelming encouragement to continue. They released “The Face of the Clown,” saw the response, and realised they had the foundations of something real.
Now they are catching up with the scale of what they have created.
The Reckoning Tour is the first physical manifestation of that momentum. Australia will see the costumes, music and ritual come together for the first time, but the most compelling element may be the humanity beneath it all.
VINDICTA is not powerful because its members can disappear behind frightening characters.
It is powerful because Grace, Amber and their bandmates are finally free to stand behind those characters as themselves.
VINDICTA Australian Tour Dates
Wednesday, June 24: The Gov, Adelaide with Spectral Dominion
Thursday, June 25: Max Watts, Melbourne with Bulletbelt
Saturday, June 27: Crowbar, Sydney with Noveaux
Sunday, June 28: Crowbar, Brisbane with Terror Parade
Tickets are available through Hardline Media and Oztix.
Tickets and information:
http://www.hardlinemedia.net
https://www.oztix.com.au
