Tag: Low

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Divide and Dissolve Share Trippy “Want”

Melbourne-based duo Divide and Dissolve — Takiaya Reed (sax, guitar) and Sylvie Nehill (drums) — have long been focused on Indigenous sovereignty: Reed is Tsalagi (Cherokee) and Black, Nehill is Māori. As a duo, they released two albums 2017’s Basic and 2018’s Abomination through DERO Arcade before signing with Invada, who released their widely acclaimed third album, 2021’s Gas Lit. Gas Lit Remix EP was also released in 2021 and featured reworkings and remixes of Gas Lit material by Moor Mother, Chelsea Wolfe and Bearcat. 

Last year, the duo toured across North America and Europe, opening for Low, which included a stop at Webster Hall, as well as headline dates and festival appearances. 

The acclaimed Aussie outfit’s fourth album, the Ruban Neilson-produced Systemic was officially released today through Invada. Thematically, the album sees the duo exploring the systems that intrinsically bind us — and calls for a system that facilitates life for everyone. It’s a message that fits firmly with the band’s core intentions: to make music that honors their ancestors and Indigenous lands, to oppose white supremacy, and to work towards a future of Black and Indigenous liberation. “This music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence,”  Divide and Dissolve’s Takaiya Reed explains in press notes. “The goal of the colonial project is to separate Indigenous people from their culture, their life force, their community and their traditions. The album is in direct opposition to this.”

Recorded as a duo, the album according to Reed is a continuation of Gas Lit. “Because of what was built with Gas Lit, Systemic is able to express itself.” She adds, “The album is a prayer to our ancestors. A prayer for land to be given back to Indigenous people, and for future generations to be free from this cycle of violence.” 

Reed emphasizes that it’s crucial for their music to be instrumental. “I believe in the power of non-verbal communication,” she continues, “A huge percent of communication is non-verbal. We learn so much without using words.”  There’s one exception on the album, the spoken word track “Kingdom of Fear,” which features writer and artist Minori Sanchiz-Fung, who contributed to previous Divide and Dissolve albums. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two released singles:

  • “Blood Quantum,” a composition built around a dissonant and insistent thumping of crashing cymbals, thunderous snare, Melvins-like guitar sludge, wavering synths and horns paired with mournful yet gorgeously orchestrated passages meant to evoke brief moments of respite. The song is rooted in — and expresses awe-inspiring beauty and heart-wrenching anguish of human existence. “The heaviness is really important,” Reed says. “It’s congruent with the message of the music, and the heaviness feels emblematic of this world’s situation.”

  • “Indignation,” a composition, which begins with a gorgeous introduction featuring looping and mournful saxophone and yearning strings that quickly morphs into the song’s second and longest section, a stormy and forceful dirge featuring power chord-driven guitar sludge, thunderous drumming and wailing strings, before ending with the mournful saxophone and yearning strings of its introduction. Divide and Dissolve’s Reed says that the song “is a prayer that land be given back to Indigenous people. A hope that future generations no longer experience the atrocities and fervent violence that colonisation continues to bring forth.” 

Systemic‘s third and latest single “Want” is a noisy yet yearning composition built around shoegazer like layered textures that include doppler effected-like oscillating feedback and brooding undertones. “‘Want’ is a deep dive into longing within a decolonial framework,” Divide and Dissolve’s Takiaya Reed explains. “We can want many things, but how will it happen? What is necessary, what systems must be broken in order for people to live?”

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with director Sepi Mashiaof, the accompanying video for “Want” features a variety of imagery that spins endlessly to the song’s oscillating tones. “As ‘Want’ is the song that introduces us to ‘Systemic’, the concept for the video emulates this kind of infant yearning for worlds beyond our current heartbreaking reality. There are so many beautiful textures above our heads that are inaccessible (as there are so many desired modes of existence that are inaccessible), and the rotation emphasizes the limbo of what that desire feels like. Trying to reach something, but succumbing to the loop of failure. Still, that infant yearning is persistent, and that compliments the need for hope and cements the importance of idealism as essential tools in our greater struggles for liberation.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed JOVM Mainstays Low Release an Aching and Feverish Visual for “I Can Wait”

Founded back in 1993, the acclaimed Duluth-based indie act and JOVM mainstays  Low — married couple Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums) — are considered pioneers of slowcore, an indie rock sub-genre featuring slowed down tempos and minimalist-leaning arrangements. despite the fact that the band has gone through a series of lineup changes, they’ve been consistent in their disapproval of the term slowcore. And gradually, the band has managed to completely shrug off the sub-genre’s established strictures altogether.

2015’s B.J. Burton-produced Ones and Sixes began an ongoing series of uncompromising and challenging material. With the critical success of Ones and Sixes, the members of Low wanted to go further with Burton and his aesthetic, to see what someone, who as Sparhawk has described as a “hip-hop guy” could do to push their music in radically new directions. Unsurprisingly, working with Burton has resulted in a completely different creative process: Instead of obsessively writing, revising and rehearsing in Duluth, before heading to the studio, the band went to  Eau Claire, WI with rough ideas and sketches for one of the most collaborative writing sessions they’ve ever had with a producer. 

During the Double Negative sessions, they’d build pieces up, break them down and build them up again until each individual song found its purpose and force. Over the two year writing and recording sessions, the outside world slid deeper into madness and instability — and in some fashion Double Negative may be seen as a document of our peculiar moment: the material is at times loud, contentious, chaotic and jarring. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s gorgeous harmonies sometimes seem to be desperately fighting against the noise and chaos, other times hidden with it. 

As you’ll recall, the Duluth-based JOVM mainstay’s critically applauded, Grammy-nominated 13th album HEY WHAT was released last year. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with B.J. Burton, the album finds Sparhawk and Parker focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray and holding fast to their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being a living human being, while turning the duality of existence into modern day hymns we can share. The album’s 10 songs are individually built by their own undeniable hooks — but they’re turbocharged by the vivid textures surrounding them. 

In the lead up to the album’s release and its release, I’ve managed to write about four of the album’s singles:

  • “Days Like These,” a disorientating track featuring hushed passages with strummed guitar fighting for space between dense layers of noise and distortion that accrete and then fall apart. The entire affair is held together by Sparkhawk and Parker’s gorgeous and slightly Autotuned harmonies, serving as a lifeline from the shore, thrown out to the poor soul just about to drown in the breakers. At its core, “Days Like These” is a yearning plea for meaning and peace in a world that’s completely mad and doesn’t make much sense. 
  • “Disappearing,” a meditative slow-burn centered around ebbing and waning feedback and distortion. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s yearning harmonies ride the uneasy crests and valleys of the song’s oceanic-like production. The song is an an aching meditation of loneliness, isolation and the unknown beyond all of this.
  • “More,” a disorientating track featuring heavily distorted and scorching power chords paired with Parker’s gorgeous lead vocal turn, singing lyrics expressing frustration while yearning — and demanding — more in a world that’s grossly unfair and inequitable.  
  • “White Horses,” which featured Sparhawk’s and Parke’rs gorgeous harmonies floating over scorching synth fuzz and feedback with bursts of shimmering strings peeking out of the fray. Much like its predecessors, “White Horses” balances the uneasy and abrasive with the breathtakingly gorgeous.

“I Can Wait,” HEY WHAT‘s fifth and latest single lyrically vacillates between patience, impatience, regret, shame and yearning in a way that captures the thoughts of someone who has been trapped within their heads. Sonically, the Duluth-based duo’s achingly yearning vocals uneasily float atop undulating synths and guitar feedback — before slowly fading out into droning feedback.

Directed by Manuel Aragon, the recently released visual for “I Can Wait” follows a collection of diverse, every day people as they try to go about their day-to-day lives but while haunted by their past mistakes and heartbreaks and longing. The end result is a brightly colored, collective fever dream that’s very human.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Low’s Scorching and Haunting “White Horses”

Founded back in 1993, the acclaimed Duluth-based indie act and JOVM mainstays  Low — married couple Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums) — are considered pioneers of slowcore, an indie rock sub-genre featuring slowed down tempos and minimalist-leaning arrangements. During their nearly 20 year run, the band has gone through a number of lineup changes; but one thing has been consistent — they’ve disapproved of the term slowcore. And gradually, the band has managed to shrug off the sub-genre’s strictures altogether.

2015’s B.J. Burton-produced Ones and Sixes began an ongoing series of uncompromising and challenging material. With the critical success of Ones and Sixes, the members of Low wanted to go further with Burton and his aesthetic, to see what someone, who as Sparhawk has described as a “hip-hop guy” could do to push their music in radically new directions. Working with Burton has resulted in a completely different creative process: Instead of obsessively writing, revising and rehearsing in Duluth, before heading to the studio, the band went to  Eau Claire, WI with rough ideas and sketches for one of the most collaborative writing sessions they’ve ever had with a producer. 

During the Double Negative sessions, they’d build pieces up, break them down and build them up again until each individual song found its purpose and force. Over the two year writing and recording sessions, the outside world slid deeper into madness and instability — and in some fashion Double Negative may be seen as a document of our peculiar moment: the material is at times loud, contentious, chaotic and jarring. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s gorgeous harmonies sometimes seem to be desperately fighting against the noise and chaos, other times hidden with it. 

The acclaimed Duluth-based JOVM mainstay’s 13th album HEY WHAT is out right now. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with B.J. Burton, the album finds Sparhawk and Parker focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray and holding fast to their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being a living human being, to the turn the duality of existence into modern day hymns we can share. The album’s 10 songs are individually built by their own undeniable hooks — but they’re turbocharged by the vivid textures surrounding them.

Over the past few months, I’ve written about three of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Days Like These,” a disorientating track featuring hushed passages with strummed guitar fighting for space between dense layers of noise and distortion that accrete and then fall apart. The entire affair is held together by Sparkhawk and Parker’s gorgeous and slightly Autotuned harmonies, serving as a lifeline from the shore, thrown out to the poor soul just about to drown in the breakers. At its core, “Days Like These” is a yearning plea for meaning and peace in a world that’s completely mad and doesn’t make much sense. 
  • “Disappearing,” a meditative slow-burn centered around ebbing and waning feedback and distortion. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s yearning harmonies ride the uneasy crests and valleys of the song’s oceanic-like production. The song is an an aching meditation of loneliness, isolation and the unknown beyond all of this.
  • “More,” a disorientating track featuring heavily distorted and scorching power chords paired with Parker’s gorgeous lead vocal turn, singing lyrics expressing frustration while yearning — and demanding — more in a world that’s grossly unfair and inequitable.  

HEY WHAT‘s fourth and latest single, album opener “White Horses” continues a remarkable run of material that’s purposefully challenging, abrasive and uneasy yet breathtakingly gorgeous. With “White Hoses” Sparhawk’s and Parker’s gorgeous harmonies floating over scorching synth fuzz and feedback with bursts of shimmering strings peeking out. The song ends with pulsating and undulating synth tones — that may remind those children of the 80s and older of a busy tone on a dial-tone phone. (Sorry sir, the line is busy; it’s the end of the world, after all!)

Directed by Shane Donahue, the recently released video for “White Horses” features grainy tape-hiss fueled footage of wild horses on the plains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Low Releases a Deeply Metaphorical Visual for Abrasive Yet Gorgeous “More”

Founded back in 1993, the acclaimed Duluth-based indie act  Low — currently founding members and married couple Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums) — are considered pioneers of slowcore, an indie rock sub-genre featuring slowed down tempos and minimalist-leaning arrangements. While going through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band has consistently disapproved of slowcore term. And over time, they’ve managed to shrug off its stricture altogether.

2015’s B.J. Burton-produced Ones and Sixes began an ongoing series of uncompromising and challenging material. With the critical success of Ones and Sixes, the members of Low wanted to go further with Burton and his aesthetic, to see what someone, who as Sparhawk has described as a “hip-hop guy” could do to put their music in radically new directions. Instead of obsessively writing, revising and rehearsing in Duluth, before heading to the studio, the band went to  Eau Claire, WI with rough ideas and sketches for one of the most collaborative writing sessions they’ve ever had with a producer.

During the Double Negative sessions, they’d build pieces up, break them down and build them up again until each individual song found its purpose and force. Over the two year writing and recording sessions, the outside world slid deeper into madness and instability — and in some fashion Double Negative may be seen as a document of our peculiar moment: the material is at times loud, contentious, chaotic and jarring. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s gorgeous harmonies sometimes seem to be desperately fighting against the noise and chaos, other times hidden with it. 

HEY WHAT, the acclaimed Duluth-based act’s 13th album is slated for a September 10, 2021 release through their longtime label home Sub Pop Records. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with producer BJ Burton,  HEY WHAT reportedly finds Sparhawk and Parker focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray and holding fast to their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being a living human being, to turn the duality of our existence into hymns we can share. The album’s ten songs are individually built by their own undeniable hooks — and are turbocharged by the vivid textures surrounding them.

In the lead-up the album’s release next month, I’ve written about two of the album’s released singles:

“Days Like These,” a disorientating track featuring hushed passages with strummed guitar fighting for space between dense layers of noise and distortion that accrete and then fall apart. The entire affair is held together by Sparkhawk and Parker’s gorgeous and slightly Autotuned harmonies, serving as a lifeline from the shore, thrown out to the poor soul just about to drown in the breakers. At its core, “Days Like These” is a yearning plea for meaning and peace in a world that’s completely mad and doesn’t make much sense. 
“Disappearing,” a meditative slow-burn centered around ebbing and waning feedback and distortion. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s yearning harmonies ride the uneasy crests and valleys of the song’s oceanic-like production. The song is an an aching meditation of loneliness, isolation and the unknown beyond all of this. 

“More,” HEY WHAT’s disorientating third and latest single is centered around scorching and heavily distorted power chords and Parker’s gorgeous lead vocal turn, singing lyrics expressing frustration while yearning and demanding for more in a world that’s grossly unfair and inequitable.

Directed by Julie Casper Roth, the recently released video for “More” metaphorically explores the Sisypeahn task of dismantling structural oppression though gender biases: Throughout the video, we see a pair of gloved hands attempting to take part and smash various parts and structures, only to discover that some things are very difficult to take apart.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Low Releases a Gorgeous and Intimate Visual for Yearning “Days Like These”

n 1993, the acclaimed Duluth-based indie act  Low — currently founding members and married couple Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums) with Steve Garrington (bass) — are considered pioneers of slowcore, an indie rock sub-genre featuring slowed down tempos and minimalist-leaning arrangements. Despite the fact that the acclaimed indie act has gone through series of lineup changes throughout their history, they’ve consistently disapproved of the slowcore term, eventually shrugging off its strictures altogether while continuing to cement their reputation for a magnetic and powerful stage show centered around Sparhawk’s and Parker’s harmonies and heartbreakingly gorgeous material.

ne of the most uncompromisingly defiant, brazenly abrasive, challenging yet stunning albums of their expansive catalog. The trio worked with Burton on 2015’s Ones and Sixes and as the story goes, they wanted to go further with Burton and his aesthetic, to see what someone who as Sparhawk has described as “a hip-hop guy” could do to push their music in a radically new directions. Instead of obsessively writing, revising and rehearsing in Duluth before heading to the studio, the band went to Eau Claire, WI with rough ideas and sketches for one of the most collaborative writing sessions they’ve ever had with a producer.

During those sessions, they’d build pieces up, break them down and build up them up again until each individual song found its purpose and force. Over the two year writing and recording sessions, the outside world slide deeper into madness and instability — and Double Negative may be a document of our peculiar moment: the material is at times loud, contentious, chaotic and jarring. Sparhawk’s and Parker’s vocals sometimes seem to be desperately fighting against the noise and chaos, other times hidden with it.

The acclaimed Duluth-based act’s 13th album HEY WHAT is slated for a September 10, 2021 release through their longtime label home Sub Pop Records. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with producer BJ Burton for the third time, HEY WHAT reportedly finds the trio focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray and holding fast to their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being a living human being, to turn the duality of our existence into hymns we can share. The album’s ten songs are individually built by their own undeniable hooks — and are turbocharged by the vivid textures surrounding them.

HEY WHAT’s first single “Days Like These” is a perfect example of what we should expect from the album’s overall sound and aesthetic: Disorientating and hushed passages with strummed guitar fight for space between layers of noise and distortion that accrete, build up and fall apart. The messiness is all held together by Sparhawk’s and Parker’s gorgeous yet slightly AutoTuned harmonies, seemingly serving as a lifeline from the shore, thrown to the poor soul drowning in the breakers. But at its core, the song is a yearning plea for meaning and peace in a world that’s completely mad and rarely makes much sense.

Directed by the band’s longtime friend and collaborator, director Karlos Rene Ayala, the recently released video for “Days Like These” is a stylish yet intimate look into the daily life of an older Black man in an extremely White place. While he may be lonely, this gentleman has his dignity, humanity and faith — seen with a Cadillac plastered with Biblical passages and time at a local church.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake Performs “When It All Comes True” at Blast Studios

Lanterns on the Lake are a critically applauded Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based indie rock quintet, currently comprised of founding trio Hazel Wilde (vocals, guitar, piano), Paul Gregory (guitar, production) and Oliver Ketteringham (drums, piano) with newest members Bob Allen (bass) and Angela Chan (violin, cello, viola).  Founded back in 2007, the band self-released two EPs and a single, which caught the attention of Bella Union Records, who signed the band in late 2010.

Shortly after signing to Bella Union, the band contributed a track to the label’s Christmas 10″ EP compilation, which featured tracks from Peter Broderick and Radiohead‘s Phillip Selway. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding, the band’s self-produced and self-recorded full-length debut effort, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home was released to critical applause in 2011.  During that period, the band opened for Explosions in the Sky, Low, and Yann Tiersen.

The band’s sophomore album 2013’s Until the Colours Run was released to critical praise, with most reviewers making special note of the material’s sociopolitical thematic concerns and undertones. The band then supported their sophomore effort with extensive touring across the European Union and their first Stateside tour that went on through the following year. 

Interestingly, the Newcastle-based act’s third album, 2015’s Beings continued a run of critically applauded albums with Drowned in Sound calling the band “one of Britain’s most crucial bands of the present moment” and DIY Magazine describing them as “virtually without equal.” Lanterns on the Lake supported the album with extensive tours across the European Union and the UK, playing their largest hometown show to date, at Sage Gateshead, where they were accompanied by Royal Northern Sinfonia, performing orchestral arrangements by Fiona Brice.  The show was recorded and released as a 2017 live album, Live with Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Adding to a growing profile nationally and internationally the band has played sets across the international festival circuit, including End of the Road Festival, Glastonbury Festival, SXSW and Bestival.

The band’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Spook the Herd is slated for a February 21, 2020 release through Bella Union. Deriving its title from a pointed comment at the manipulative tactics of ideologies, the album thematically is inspired by and draws from our turbulent and uncertain times in which we’re on the brink of our own annihilation — with the album’s nine songs touching upon our time’s hopelessly polarized politics, social media, addiction, grief, the climate crisis and more.

Spook the Herd marks the first time that the band left their native Newcastle to record in a studio — Yorkshire‘s Distant City Studios, where the album was engineered by Joss Worthington. Doing such a thing shook up the comfortable mindsets they’ve developed during their relatively young careers. “We are a pretty insular band in how we work, and trusting other people enough to allow them to get  involved is not always easy for us,” the band’s Hazel Wilde admits in press notes.

Recorded live as much as possible, the band’s sound still draws from dream pop and post rock — but with a stripped down approach, which gives the material a stark urgency and immediacy. And it reportedly may be the most intimate feeling album of their growing catalog with the material feeling as though you were in the room with the band. Last month, I wrote about Spook the Herd’s second single “Baddies,” a track that found the acclaimed British act balancing a widescreen cinematic bombast with a balladeer’s intimacy with the track centered around soaring strings, dramatic and forceful drumming, shimmering guitar lines and Wilde’s gorgeous and expressive vocals. The end result is a song that sonically recalls Portishead-like trip hop, Beach House-like dream pop and post rock with a narrator making a desperate, last stand against hatred and polarization. 

The album’s third and latest single is the incredibly cinematic “When It All Comes True.” Centered around a soaring hook, Wilde’s gorgeous and expressive vocals, shimmering strings, twinkling keys, forceful drumming, “When It All Comes True” — to my ears, at least — brings Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp to mind, but with a darker, more uncertain undertone. 

“Sometimes when you write a song you are creating a world in the same way a film maker or an artist painting a scene would,” Lantern on the Lake’s Hazel Wilde explains in press notes. “This is a twisted coming-of-age love story where we’re let in on the thoughts of what seems like a deranged narrator with a premonition. They’ve been trying to warn everyone around them of what is to come but nobody takes them seriously. At the time I was writing this one there was a lot of awful stuff on the news about shootings in America and elsewhere and some of that seeped into the story. At the end our narrator promises: ‘through the empty streets in the searing heat I’ll keep my word for you, when the sirens cease and my pulse is weak, I’ll keep my word for you.’”

The recently released video features live footage of the acclaimed British act performing the song for The Spook Sessions at Newcastle’s Blast Studios, which was directed, edited and filmed by Ian West. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Newcastle’s Acclaimed Lanterns on the Lake Release an Urgent Call to Resist Hate

Lanterns on the Lake are a critically applauded Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based indie rock quintet, currently comprised of founding trio Hazel Wilde (vocals, guitar, piano), Paul Gregory (guitar, production) and Oliver Ketteringham (drums, piano) with Bob Allen (bass) and Angela Chan (violin, cello, viola).  Founded back in 2007, the band self-released two EPs and a single, which caught the attention of Bella Union Records, who signed the band in late 2010. 

Shortly after signing to their label home, the band contributed a track to Bella Union’s Christmas 10″ EP compilation, which featured tracks from Peter Broderick and Radiohead’s Phillip Selway. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding, the band’s self-produced and self-recorded full-length debut effort, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home was released to critically applause in 2011.  During that period, the band opened for Explosions in the Sky, Low, and Yann Tiersen. 

The band’s sophomore album 2013’s Until the Colours Run was released to critical praise, with most reviewers noting the material’s sociopolitical thematic concerns and undertones. The members of Lanterns on the Lake supported their sophomore effort through the following year with extensive touring across the European Union and their first Stateside tour. 

Lantern on the Lake’s third album 2015’s Beings continued a run of critically applauded albums with Drowned in Sound calling the band “one of Britain’s most crucial bands of the present moment” and DIY Magazine describing them as “virtually without equal.” The Newcastle-based act supported the album with extensive tours across the European Union and the UK, playing their largest hometown show to date, at Sage Gateshead, where they were accompanied by Royal Northern Sinfonia, performing orchestral arrangements by Fiona Brice.  The show was recorded and released as a 2017 live album, Live with Royal Northern Sinfonia. 

Adding to a growing profile nationally and internationally the band has played sets across the international festival circuit, including End of the Road Festival, Glastonbury Festival, SXSW and Bestival. 

The band’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Spook the Herd is slated for a February 21, 2020 release through Bella Union. Deriving its title from a pointed comment at the manipulative tactics of ideologies, the album thematically is inspired by and draws from our turbulent and uncertain times in which we’re on the brink of our own annihilation — with the album’s nine songs touching upon our time’s hopelessly polarized politics, social media, addiction, grief, the climate crisis and more. 

Interestingly, Spook the Herd marks the first time that the band left their native Newcastle to record in a studio — Yorkshire’s Distant City Studios, where the album was engineered by Joss Worthington. Naturally, this shook up comfortable mindsets they’ve developed during their relatively young careers. “We are a pretty insular band in how we work, and trusting other people enough to allow them to get  involved is not always easy for us,” the band’s Hazel Wilde admits in press notes. 

Recorded live as much as possible, the band’s sound still draws from dream pop and post rock — but with a stripped down approach, which gives the material a stark urgency and immediacy. And it reportedly may be the most intimate feeling album of their growing catalog with the material feeling as though you were in the room with the band. The album’s latest single “Baddies” finds the acclaimed British act balancing a widescreen and bombastic cinematic air with a balladeer’s intimacy, centered around soaring strings, dramatic and forceful drumming, shimmering guitar lines and Wilde’s gorgeous and expressive vocals. And while being breathtakingly beautiful, the song which seems to recall Portishead-like trip hop, Beach House-like dream pop and post rock is its narrator’s desperate, last stand against hatred and polarization; one that has its narrator actively seeking the universal to bring the little people of the world together. 

“Baddies is a song about the rising tide of anger and hate in the world that seems to have been unleashed over the last few years, with those in positions of power and influence actively encouraging it for their own ends, and the polarization of society as a result,” Hazel Wilde explains in press notes. “It is about the need for the individual, the underdog, to stand up to it, but the fact in doing so we become part of it. We become someone else’s baddie.”