Reviews
With new single Ruins, Liverpool band, St. Jude the Obscure (duo Adele Emmas and Christian Sandford, with Grace Goodwin on drums) continue their effortless ascent from the ashes of past incarnations, Bird and Feral Love. The name may be different but the DNA is the same. The major change in 2017 has been the welcome release of fresh material. While Feral Love fans were starved for so long of new songs, StJtO aficionados have had a series of quick releases to get their aural teeth into. First came Wreckage on 24th February, followed by Wonders of Youth on 7th April, and now Ruins on 26th May. A new song every month and a half whets the appetite for an EP, or dare I say it, a much anticipated album. To anyone who has seen them perform in Liverpool, the songs are not new, but it is exciting to be able to listen to them on repeat, to dissect them and soak up the atmospheres they invoke. Indeed that is the essence of the band. They craft delicate yet insistent soundscapes that are painted onto your blank canvas as you are whisked off to newly revealed horizons in your imagination.
So, what do you get with Ruins? Firstly, you get five minutes and eighteen seconds worth of top quality musicianship, a perfect blend of multi tracked vocals, layered synths, demanding bass lines, driving beats and distorted guitar runs. You are picked up in the night and taken on an ethereal road trip through desolate landscapes of loss, destruction and anxiety, to a place where you can rediscover your true essence. Away from the claustrophobic hustle and bustle of the bright city lights is a door leading to an oasis of calm, where you can “slip into an endless time.”
I asked Adele how the song came about:
“The song is about escape, it’s about having a place that you can go to when you just need a bit of time away from it all. I used to go down to Devon to stay with family when I felt like I needed some space to think and to reflect upon things. I’d travel down to the south and reach the bottom of the country where the train met the sea. Passing old abandoned boats along the way. I’d spend time reading and would take myself off on long walks, listening to music and generally switching off from the racing world for a few days. One day, when I was out walking I came across a historical ruin in the fields and that’s where the lyric – ‘In the ruins I found a piece of me’ was born. It was like finding a piece of myself that I’d lost, out there. The initial instrumentation and melody for the track was actually written a good couple of years ago and the song itself went through many different guises until we felt we’d found the right one. So it’s been a long time coming for Ruins, but the song holds a lot of fond memories and reminds me of finding sanctuary in the people you love and out in the wild.”
This song comes highly recommended. It’s a song to escape to, a song to drive to, to run to, to walk to, to gym to. And then when you’ve listened to it, keep playing it, before listening to the rest of their songs too.
For previous reviews/interviews see:
Words: Si @cre8ivation
Featured image by GloryBox Photography and Creative Imaging
