Songs on Repeat is a new feature on the blog that looks to publicise upcoming bands and new releases. If you are in a band or are part of a label/PR company, feel free to contact the blog to promote new material.
Often, tracks that take you down lyrical avenues of psychological powerlessness are stylistically defined by alienated and anxious restraint, a melancholy that seems inescapable. Crucial to the sound of acts such as Joy Division, Cat Power and Phoebe Bridgers is a gentle atmospheric intrusion of all they touch through a romantic despondency.
Meanwhile, Blanketman are taking a new approach. The first seconds of ‘Harold’, a preview to their upcoming EP National Trust, seem almost triumphant. Gone is the gloom of their predecessors, now replaced by a powerful and thumping introduction that emanates elation, almost jubilation.
Where the instrumentation leads the listener to a place of positivity, the lyrics tell a different story. Described by lead singer Adam Hopper as coming from “a series of unsavoury night terrors”, the song dives into the headline confession that “Sleeps paralyse me” with the vocals fighting to be heard amongst the ever-growing cacophony of the backing.
This is a compelling track that manages to elude any obvious or direct association with groups gone by. The words are brutally honest, yet within this emotional turmoil lies a sense of near-liberation, a direct address to the problems plaguing the slumbering mind that provides an ownership, illusory or not, that defines the track’s infectious energy.
Blanketman’s EP ‘National Trust’ is released in March next year on PIAS Recordings. Photo: Through The Eyes of Ruby.
The Colour of Spring 
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