The Cavern Stage was set, the script written. The audience had taken their position in the stalls. The actors had run through their lines and fine-tuned their skills. I recall it as vividly as if it was yesterday. But it was two days ago! My ears can still clearly visualise and smell and taste that beautiful, sunny day in May forever imprinted on my consciousness. It was the day when a gentle breeze blew in from the Mersey and over the small stage, sprinkling the feral fairy dust of love over the assembled festival throng. For some the anticipation and tension were already heightened: they had an inkling of what was undoubtedly coming.  Others stood blissfully unprepared for Cupid’s arrow of desire that unexpectedly struck their musical hearts. Unaware that Feral Love would change their lives forever.

When Feral Love play live the love is never unrequited. There is a tangible, two way love and appreciation and passion. The songs are driving electro-synthpop sound- and imaginationscapes that draw you into a kind of Midsummer Night’s Dream where you are first wooed and then left in a state of seduction that is both complete, and eternal. You clap and cheer your appreciation for your new found lover, who expresses gratitude back in return.

I saw a painting a year ago and said to the artist that it reminded me of the song Wuthering Heights. She told me excitedly that she listens to music and paints what she hears. It was a swirl of dark, brooding passionate colours and brushstrokes. She had indeed been listening to Wuthering Heights while painting that picture. One small throwaway comment affirmed her method of creating her paintings. Why am I saying this? It’s not just because Adele Emmas’ haunting, otherworldy, intensely beautiful, soul-piercing vocals have been likened to Kate Bush. It is simply this: when I hear any of the few (sadly!) available Feral Love tracks, pictures form in my mind. The music cleverly imitates the lyrics and vice versa so that you are left with a much fuller audio-visual experience. Adele, Kristian and Grace bring out and enhance the lyrical focus in the way they sing and play, and in the dynamics of their deftly crafted creations.

I asked Adele recently about the visual aspect to the songs and she is clearly happy for people to interpret the songs in their own way, even if that is in a completely different light to the genesis of the songs in the band’s mind’s eye.  “That’s what makes a song special to each individual person.”

(The full transcript of the interview can be found at:  http://www.cre8ivation.com/?p=5654

That is surely good news.  For me, Into the Fire starts with a haunting ten note hook on the piano as the fire is kindled. The riff is woven through the entire song and has a hypnotic effect as I sit staring at the flickering fire that looms ever larger in my entranced dreamscape. There is something primeval about the way the song builds to a vocal and organ inferno before returning to just the piano as the fire and the song die out and you are left in deep contemplation of the embers, warmed for now. Just as life-or love and passion maybe?-starts and grows and then dies out. The video for the song actually starts with a caption that encapsulates this concept:  “Written and filmed on 11/01/2016 – the day we realised our mortality.” No coincidence surely: the day Bowie passed on.

With the crowd suitably wooed by a thirty minute set of divine creations, their standout song is unleashed. It is, of course, current single, Like the Wind, which was recorded at Parr Street Studios and released on Edge Hill’s The Label. These Kate-Bush-for-the-twenty-first-century, ethereal vocals turn the breeze that blew in at the start of the set into a veritable emotional tornado. Harmonising with the instruments it just builds and builds and builds some more. Hurricane Grace then kicks in too, bombarding the crowd’s senses, whilst threatening to blow them off their feet and deposit them in the Mersey, a display of the force of passion and human nature. If you want to know what Feral Love means and what they are all about see this song played live. No other name would suit.

Do not wait a minute more! Get yourself a ticket and go and see Feral Love live at Leaf in Bold Street on the ninth of June. How could you not fail to be seduced and fall wildly in love?

Feral Love are: Adele Emmas and Christian Sandford, with Grace Goodwin on drums.

Follow them on Facebook and Twitter @Feral_Love

Interview with Adele: http://www.cre8ivation.com/?p=5654

 

They are supporting: Icelandic band, Samaris at Leaf Tea Shop on Bold St, Liverpool (9th June, 2016)

 

Words and photos by Si.  ©Cre8ivation