Do you ever find you just stumble across artists at the exact right moment in your life?
This is how I feel about Rageflower. I tripped over their latest EP, Sign of Life, this weekend while not even trying to look for anything as I have a long ass list of stuff to review and listen to, but I instantly fell in love.
Sign of Life just sits so perfectly with everything I’ve been listening to at the moment. It’s a queer artist, talking about big feelings and it’s pretty and folky and lovely. (And no, they weren’t recommended from an algorithm).
What struck me most about this EP was the gorgeous lyricism. We know that I’m a lyrics girl at heart and it was phrases such as “a cigarette panic attack” and “I never earned my wisdom I just ransacked the kitchen for silver spoons” that had me coming back for a second listen.
On listen two I realised the delivery of these words also plays a huge part. The arrangement on the tracks that allows those lines to just hang in your brain a moment too long, or the emotional intensity that makes you stop and really listen.
The indie guitar and vocals on opening track Sign of Life are so perfectly balanced. It’s really quite an upbeat track but giving the vocals equal weighting (especially where they’re layered through the chorus) changes the feel of the song making it more reminiscent to laidback pop than true indie. I really enjoyed this about it, it made it sound fresh and also helped keep the tone more in keeping with the rest of the EP.
While I adored the emotional delivery of second track Parallel Angel (333), it’s the third song Angel Things that takes the award as my favourite. Its simplicity and the slow delivery of the lyrics that allow every word to have an impact really heightened my emotional experience of it.
If you loved my recommendations from my chilled out, folk inspired week of Take Five, or Annika Bennett’s Triple Shooting Star, then Sign of Life is another must listen.
And find out more about Rageflower here.