Errant Boy, comprising Chris Harvie (guitars/songs), Sarrah McLaren (drums) and Sean Ormsby (voice/bass/songs) are an indie guitar led group formed in Edinburgh, in 2015. Their first musical offering, A Wayward Mirror was released a year later and the end of 2018 gives us their second album, Memory Fractures.
Memory Fractures runs through a series of snapshots of a tense Belfast childhood and alcohol-fuelled bliss and regret in Edinburgh, North London and beyond, drawing on autobiographical fragments throughout. Errant Boy say that one of their major influences musically is The Smiths and this is apparent right from the word go. ‘We Like You’ was released as a single earlier in the year and is an example of the feeling of intensity generated by this album. Melodic rhythms and experiments with sounds draw the listener in; this is thought provoking music. ‘Theme from 29 Bus’ is another interesting track, blending sounds reminiscent of The Smiths and the Beatles.
Before you read on, Errant Boy is giving a FREE download of “Theme from 29 Bus”, to Angry Baby readers. If you’re not already subscribed to Angry Baby, just pop the email address that you’d like it delivered to here and it will be on its way to you straight away, together with a bumper collection of music that has been shared by Angry Baby. The music comes from outstanding artists that you may not have heard before. With a mix of rock, pop, folk…you name it…there’s bound to be something new that floats your musical boat, and all for free! What’s not to like about that?!
Memory Fractures is an intense listening experience, beginning with ‘Means‘, which itself opens with a snippet of an Italian film. From the opening bars of music, you know where you are with this band and where they want to take you, which is into thumping good melodic music stretching over the album as a coherent whole. There is no waffling around with this music – it draws you in, makes you think and then stops when it’s done it’s job. The result of that of course is that you’re left wanting to get on to the next track as soon as you can and then when you get to the end, you realise you need to play again and again. Once is definitely not enough with this album.
Other tracks worth a mention are ‘Tale Twist’ and ‘444′ which feel less experimental and more music led and make a fine contribution to Memory Fractures. Given the partly autobiographical nature of these songs, the album leaves you questioning and thinking about the nature of memory; after all, don’t we each have different memories of the same occurrences? This is one of the beauties of this album and this band – they make you think and keep the audience coming back for more.
As with their music, Errant Boy’s advice to aspiring musicians is to the point:
“Don’t chase it and only keep going as long as you feel compelled to do so.”
Memory Fractures was released on November 16 on Errant Media Records. Get your copy here.
Catch Errant Boy at their album launch on November 30. Or if you can’t make it, follow them at:
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