OK, I’ll admit it, I have gone on a bit about Sound of the Sirens this year but I think events have proved me right. I was absolutely blown away the first time saw Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood supporting Mad Dog Mcrea at the famous Half Moon in Putney. Since then they’ve had a stratospheric rise which saw them play at Carfest South and appear live on the first edition of the revived TFI Friday, so I was really chuffed when they agreed to do something for this year’s High Fives. I should say that they’re lovely people (and that includes Johnny Wood as well) and I wish them all the best for 2016. Thanks once again, Abbe and Hannah for sharing this insight into the world of Sound of the Sirens.

Carfest South

We arrive at the services with extra wide smiles and sit for a second to take in the full extent of what has just happened. People in the car park double take when looking at the car and we sit inside with the cheesiest grins. We don’t look like the owners of this vehicle… we look like we’ve stolen it. We are sat in a top of the range brand new Land Rover Discovery and the usual battered van is long gone…..for the day. It’s a Sunday morning in August and we have just played Carfest South to a crowd of 20,000 and we are in a complete daze of disbelief that this is now a memory of ours. It happened! Sunday morning sees us packing up to leave the beautiful Surrey countryside and head back south to Somerset for the lovely Watchet festival. Chris (Evans) suggests we head back to Carfest for the night after the gig but the van will never make the journey on time. ‘Do you want to borrow one of my cars instead?’ So here we are at the services smiling and laughing at how strange and fun life can be.

Wrong continent or incontinent

It’s January 2015 and I (Abbe) book tickets to see Ben Howard on his last European gig of his tour. He is playing in St Petersburg and I have always wanted to go. This is the perfect trip. In the mad panic of Christmas and sorting visas, I never once double-check the venue location. On arrival in Russia I discover that he playing the first date of his American tour. It is then that I discover there are 2 St Petersburgs and I am in Russia and he is in America. I am on the wrong continent! This gives our friends back in England fuel to tease for me life and one in particular tweets Ben Howard to tell him about my faux pas.

It’s now February and we have just played a gig in Birmingham and we are heading back to Devon. Johnny (driver, roadie, all round sirens organiser) pulls into the services and we all bundle out together as Hannah announces what percentage she needs a wee. This is a normal soundtrack to our drives. 20% is ok but 97% is a bad situation. We are all on a high 80% when I get a message sent through with a link to a video where Ben Howard is laughing at the St Petersburg disaster. Well, he laughs and then calls us ‘******** idiots!’ Totally fair though. As I am watching the video and following the corridor through the services I wander into the wrong toilets look up and scream as I disturb Johnny. My screams echo round the services as Hannah’s laugh erupts from the ladies next door. Bad times!

Drug mule

It’s April 2015 and we are sat in the Bristol Gordano services and Han is in need of a hot chocolate and a hug. We have been waiting at the airport for hours whilst she is detained by the police. We have just played at the Frankfurt Messe working alongside Elixir Strings and Freshman guitars and have flown home excited and full of stories to share. We step off the plane and through passport control when I realise Han is no longer behind me. A commotion breaks out ‘I can’t find my passport Ab’. My heart sinks. I should let you know that Hannah is a ‘loser’(Not an insult, Hannah loses things – AM). So ….. she can not come back in the country and the police chat to her. She has left her passport on the seat of the plane but they can not find it. Unfortunately at that point a flight comes in from Amsterdam and hundreds of people assume Han is a drug smuggler. More bad times! We are eventually let back in after they realise she is English and not a mule.

TFI Friday

We have arrived at the services for a strong coffee to ease the self-inflicted ache in our brains at an overload of excitement . It’s a Saturday morning in October and we are electric with energy as we have played live on TFI Friday the night before. Our slot was set between the mighty U2 and Take That and endless messages are pouring in from the lovely people we’ve acquired on our musical journey and each one puts a smile on our face. As we arrive at the services one message comes through from a friend to tell us that we are 20 in the ITunes chart and it just keeps rising as the day continues. I don’t think the services have heard a scream like ours before.

Too many choices

We have just finished supporting Mad Dog McRea on their tour and we are heading back to Devon eagerly awaiting the services sign on the side of the motorway. This was it. We had found the perfect services. We all piled out like animals at feeding time. You should know we base our day around mealtimes and we take it very seriously. This services had everything to offer. There was a vast selection of different places to eat and we all set off in different directions to get food. However, we kept meeting each other in different queues heading to the front and then changing our minds and joining the back of other queues. We were all in a fluster that we would make the wrong choice on our food and worried that food envy would set in and so nothing was achieved. We all needed time out from all the choice on offer. This services was too good and we were not prepared for such decision making. We have since stuck to simple services as we fear the larger ones that offer too much. We are small town girls and the big services are just too confusing.

 

In December 2014, I made a conscious decision that I would get to as many gigs as I possibly could during 2015. Not all of those gigs became reviews or picture galleries, but I certainly broke my previous record, which has stood since my second year at university. I love those moments at gigs when something happens which is either so unexpected or so exceptional that the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you know that you’ll remember it forever. Here are five of those from 2015:

Sound of the Sirens – In mid-March this year I was at The Half Moon in Putney to see Mad Dog Mcrea. I’d just reviewed their “Almost Home” album and thought they would be good to see live. I hadn’t heard of the support band, Sound of the Sirens, but I like to see support bands because you never know when you’ll make a great discovery; this was one of those nights. Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood grabbed my attention from the opening notes with superb songs, perfect harmonies and counterpoint and a huge dynamic range combining to create a set of acoustic anthems for the twenty-first century, all of it completely new to me. The entire set was stunning, but “Faith in Fire” had me transfixed; I had to just stand and watch, open-mouthed as the song progressed from the quiet intro to a rousing finale. Just perfect.

Graham Parker & Brinsley Schwarz at The Union Chapel – My first visit to the lovely Union Chapel and I was there with Phil Burdett to see one of my teenage heroes play a stripped-down set with Brinsley Schwarz (who was in the first proper band I saw live). Graham Parker has such a huge catalogue of songs that it’s impossible to predict which ones would make the cut on the night. Over the pre-gig pint, I came up with a small wish-list; one of which was almost a certainty, and the other a bit of an outsider. The opening song “Watch the Moon Come Down” ticked the certainty box, but it wasn’t until much later in the set that the harrowing “You Can’t be Too Strong” completed the list. The audience reaction of awed silence throughout the song and an explosion of applause at the end showed that I wasn’t the only person waiting to hear that one. I think I may have had something in my eye at that point.

Hannah Aldridge at Green Note – This is another gig that came out of hearing an album and deciding that I had to see the artist. Hannah’s debut, “Razor Wire”, is a wonderful piece of work featuring some brutally honest and sincere depictions of her life and I was keen to hear how these songs would strip down to an acoustic format. As expected, the songs worked perfectly in their original forms with Hannah’s pure, clear voice and acoustic guitar; Hannah was engaging between songs, giving some background to each piece, explaining the inspiration behind it. The song which completely silenced the full house at Green Note was “Parchman”, a song that, uncharacteristically, isn’t autobiographical; it’s the story of a woman on death row for murdering her abusive husband. I swear you couldn’t even hear anyone breathe as Hannah pulled the maximum emotion from the song by playing it completely straight; no vocal tricks or adornments, just a perfect song and a beautiful delivery, leaving the audience emotionally drained.

Dean Owens at The Union Chapel – It’s fair to say that Dean Owens is a bit of a Riot Squad favourite and it’s great to see that he’s having some very well-deserved success this year. Landing the support slot for Rosanne Cash at The Union Chapel gave Dean a chance to play in front of a full house and an appreciative audience in London with only his guitar and a bunch of great songs. He had the audience with him from the start and got a great response for the whole set but saved something very special for the end. He went completely unplugged; no amplification for guitar or voice. I’ve seen this done in smaller venues (Hannah Aldridge did it at Green Note) but it was big moment in a venue this size, however good the acoustics are. Dean hit the ball out of the park; he pulled out a rip-roaring version of Buck Owens’ “Love’s Gonna Live Here” which rightly earned him a huge response from a slightly stunned audience. A magical moment.

Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal at The Union Chapel – I know, I’m just being greedy here; two epiphanies on the same night. Rosanne Cash featured a lot of songs from the award-winning “The River and the Thread” and, with husband John Leventhal, was superb throughout, taking time to tell some of the stories behind the songs and establish a warm rapport with the audience. Strangely enough, the entire set seemed to come into sharp focus on someone else’s song, Bobbie Gentry’s enigmatic “Ode to Billy Joe”, which pulled all of the other threads together. A very simple arrangement and heartfelt performances pulled the audience into the song and generated a response that was part acclamation and part relief at escape from the song’s interwoven strands of tragedy and banality.

And I suppose that’s one reason that we go to gigs; we always hope that we’ll see those moments that you can’t capture on film or record/CD/MP3; the things that only happen once. I think five in one year’s pretty good going. Thanks to Sound of the Sirens, Graham Parker, Hannah Aldridge, Dean Owens and Rosanne Cash for those fabulous memories.

Well it’s taken us a while to get this one together after I was left speechless (I know, that’s difficult to believe) as I watched Sound of the Sirens’ unique set of twentieth century acoustic anthems in support of Mad Dog Mcrea earlier this year. When I heard they were coming to London to appear live on the open mic session on Chris Evans’ show on Radio 2, it was an opportunity that was too good to miss. Here’s what happened when they turned up south of the river, buzzing with adrenaline and caffeine and ready to tell the world about it:

Allan – Well, it’s been five months since I saw you at The Half Moon in Putney. Quite a lot has happened since then, so tell me what’s been going on?

Abbe – Doing the mini tours with Mad Dog completely exhausted us, left us on-our-knees-tired, but always worth it because they’re lovely. Then we applied to Glastonbury and Mike Mathieson of Mad Dog, who knows everyone, who knows everyone, who knows everyone, said try these people so we tried other avenues, followed the routes he gave us and one of them paid off. They must be inundated with people applying, so even to get a ‘Oh hello girls, yes, brilliant, we’ll have a look at what you do’, we were excited, and then getting that email to say we’d got in to Glastonbury was just brilliant.

Hannah – We screamed and jumped on couches.

Abbe – I couldn’t see because I smiled so much my eyes closed.

Allan – That started off with one gig, didn’t it? How many did you end up with at Glastonbury?

Hannah – Four in the end, because each stage only has a certain amount of tickets to give out, so once you’re in there, they want acts.

Abbe – So we just ran around begging people to play…

Hannah – And they had us.

Abbe – And it was quite funny because one of the best gigs we did there was the backstage hospitality and catering for all the staff, who were just hilarious and they were so up for a party because they’d been working all day and everybody was in such good spirits. To do the sort of mini-gig in their world within Glastonbury was really fun and then we realised that was the way forward, so we started approaching all the backstage bars like the Circus Tent. Who knows, if we get back next year it would be nice to go and play some more of those.

Allan – Was it at Glastonbury that Chris Evans saw you, initially?

Abbe – I think a few people have put that on Facebook, haven’t they, and people just assume that, but we got in to Carfest (North) through a lovely girl called Chloe who put us on to the Wigwam Stage and when we were there she said ‘I’ve also managed to put you forward for the friends and family glamping area…’

Hannah – I’ve still got my band on for good luck…

Abbe – And we said ‘Oh brilliant, that’s great’ and she said ‘I don’t think you realise what a deal this is; this is an access all areas pass, even I can’t get in to these areas’. So me and Hannah put on these bands and waltzed around Carfest flashing our bands here, there and everywhere and it was just brilliant. So we went to set up and we had to do the sound as well, so we were having this big faff and panic when Bob Geldof walked in. It was just berserk and then we set up and it was a lovely tent; everyone was outside around the fire enjoying themselves, so we just settled in to the fact that ‘It’s cool that we’re here but no-one’s really going to watch and we might meet Chris Evans if he comes by but we’re just the background and that’s that.’ Then in walked Chris Evans and sat about two metres in front of us tapping the table and with his feet tapping. If someone had filmed us, the reactions on our faces would have been so funny but then he stayed for the entire set. Brilliant.

Hannah – Me and Abbe couldn’t look at each other.

Abbe – We’ve developed this thing over the last few weeks where we have to avoid eye contact with each other.

Allan – So that was what led to this morning.

Hannah – Yeah. We played at Carfest, then we got a text message from Chris the next day, back at the van…

Abbe – We gave him our CDs the night before…

Hannah – And we spoke to him and he said ‘What can I do for you girls, I listened to your CD this morning.’

Abbe – To which we coolly said ‘OK’. (Laughter all round). It was really funny because we went back to the tent to get breakfast and he came in and said ‘Hello again, I’ve got your music playing in my car and I’ll take your details and get in contact and we’ll sort this out.’ So we were just trying to be really cool and collected. He’s so friendly, he’s so down to earth; he’s lovely. And he left and the chef who was making everybody breakfast just came over and leaned on the table and went ‘Look at you trying to keep it together’

Then we got a text saying ‘Let’s sort this out’ and we thought ‘Shall we just give him a ring? Who dares wins…’

Hannah – Then we got invited to The Mulberry Inn, his pub, to play and open mic night last Friday which was amazing and we ended up playing our whole set at the end of the night.

Abbe – It was two songs, then it was four. Then ‘No, don’t stop, we’ll tell you when to stop. Right, close the doors, keep playing”. It was brilliant.

Hannah – Then he saw the state of us in the morning the next day…

Abbe – And he still liked us.

Allan – And presumably that’s what led to where you’ve been this morning; at Radio 2.

Abbe – (More laughter) That was the long answer.

Hannah – It was the teapot that did it; the teapot in the van, our RAC van. (Probably too complicated to explain here, but it’s a good excuse to point you in the direction of the show on iPlayer at 1:42:20 and 02:25:55).

Allan – And how it did it go at Radio 2?

Abbe – Amazing! It’s so funny; we were obviously nervous, but I don’t think I‘ve thought about it enough this week because it’s been a case of ‘Right this is happening, get that planned get this organised, do that…” that you don’t actually think about what you’re planning towards until suddenly the day was here and my stomach was just turning in circles. Then we got there and it was fine, don’t even think about it, don’t look at Facebook, don’t look at your phone, don’t look at messages, don’t think about everyone we know sitting around the radio like the 1940s or something listening to us.

And then I went off to the toilet and you see faces that you know so I just did this casual nod like ‘Oh there’s my friend, oh hello, oh wait, no, that’s Moira Stuart…aaargh!’

Allan – I listened to it and I was listening out for any signs of nerves; I couldn’t hear any at all.

Hannah – That’s brilliant. We haven’t heard it back yet so we don’t know how it sounded.

Abbe – There was a point where I felt a bit bleaty; there was a lot of nervous vibrato…

Allan – Was it the intention for you to do two songs right from the start?

Hannah – He had asked us to do one and then the producer said that he wanted us to do two…

Abbe – But then the way it was all structured today with us playing and then Jonas and Jane and Mancie Baker we were just waiting to see what happened because obviously they’ve got their playlist and you can see it all on the computers everywhere and people are running in handing him text messages and notices and I thought there was a good intention but it might not happen because they’re on such a schedule and then suddenly… He doesn’t give you much notice for things does he? Everything’s so casual, like Chris knows what’s going on, but no-one else does.

Allan – Do you know if they filmed any of it?

Abbe – I don’t know. I think there were notices around saying if the red light’s on, there’s a webcam being broadcast, and on the red button (interactive) you can see the DJs, so there may well be something.

Allan – So, to go back a bit, How did Sound of the Sirens start?

Hannah – Many moons ago. We met each other about ten years ago when we worked in a nightclub together and clicked and got on really well. Then we started singing together, probably about three years later?

Abbe – Probably about that. I remember being sitting in your Mum and Dad’s house singing and your Mum going ‘Oh, that’s nice’ and then when you moved house we used to sit there doing harmonies on “Chasing Cars”.

Hannah – We started a band called Route Two, but we soon realised that was a bit of an error.

Abbe – We had two gigs supporting the Fab Beatles in Devon.

Hannah – And the amazing Kev Day (of the Fab Beatles), was really supportive and encouraged us.

Abbe – Then we left that and joined a functions band with Lisa, so there were three of us and then we became Sound of the Sirens when we got bored of singing covers and thought let’s write our own music.

Hannah – And learn to play guitar.

Abbe – Then Lisa fell in love and moved to London and there was good intention there for us to stay together but it just didn’t happen. We got lovely messages from Lisa this morning. She’s been so supportive throughout; we still see her all the time. I think people always want some scandal, you know, what happened to the third one?

Allan – It must be difficult keeping a band together in those circumstances, it’s like trying to keep a relationship together at long distance.

Abbe – Especially when it’s essentially a hobby, when you’re working full-time and then every weekend you’re committing to a band and trying to keep a relationship going and you live in a different city, it’s just never going to happen, but we’re all still really good friends.

So, Sound of the Sirens has been going six years, nearly seven and it’s been me and Hannah for the last three. When Lisa was with us, we just had a very simple stomp box in the middle which Johnny (band chauffeur, organiser, minder and all-round good bloke) fashioned out of MDF with a mic in a box; job done. Then Lisa left and to fill that gap we added in the floor tom and the tambourine.

Allan – Well that’s my next question ruined then. I was about to ask if the percussion had been there right from the start because that’s quite a big element of what you do, isn’t it?

Abbe – I think it is now, more than it was originally.

Hannah – It was difficult trying to choose songs today for Radio 2 without the percussion; it was quite tough because a lot of our songs are driven by the rhythm.

Abbe – (To Hannah) Did you notice this morning that when they said ‘We’ve got the mics set up, girls, can you try and stand still?’. We’re used to floor tom and tambourine to bashing our feet around on everything and it’s really difficult to stand still; we were air drumming.

Hannah – So it did take a while in the beginning; we were often at random beats, flying everywhere.

Allan – So my really big question now is how do you decide who gets to play the floor tom, because you don’t always have the same configuration?

Abbe – I think naturally… I can’t even remember how we did that in the beginning; I think I must have just done the drum on one song and stayed on it, because I drum a lot and play tambourine a lot and I think we just got used to doing the on beat or the off beat, so it’s difficult when you try and change it. There are songs that we swap…

Hannah – Because of the rhythms we’re playing on the guitar, and sometimes trying to do the opposite on the drum felt, at the time, a bit impossible because we were new to it so we just did whatever worked more naturally.

Abbe – I think we probably could do it now but it’s quite nice to swap and do something different. We wouldn’t get that lumpy thing when you’re drumming and you lose it and go all ‘lost it: lumpy leg’.

Allan – When you first started writing your own material, who were you influenced by?

Hannah – I think you’ve got influences wedged in your brain anyway from when you were growing up; from when you were little and teenage years; we used to listen to very different types of music.

Abbe – What was the music in your household, growing up?

Hannah – The music was Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, a bit of Alice Cooper; my Mum only had one CD really and that was Alex Parks (More laughter). Love you Alex Parks, but… And as a teenager, I tried to be cool; I listened to a bit of happy hardcore, but I think that was on purpose, just trying to be cool and I don’t do that anymore. And Hanson, Gloria Estefan as an eleven-year-old (Hannah, not Gloria).

We had our own influences but together, the bands that we loved when we started playing, were Mumford and Sons, Damien Rice…

Abbe – We were saying that this morning weren’t we? I grew up with country; my dad’s really into country music, we’re talking Foster and Allen.

Allan – Not outlaw country then…

Abbe – No; on Sunday mornings I can remember me and my brother, our bedrooms were next to each other, and we were ‘He’s doing it again!’ and shouting at Dad who was downstairs singing. My Mum was really into The Kinks and The Carpenters and me and my sister used to record ourselves singing Carpenters songs because we loved Karen Carpenter so much and those were our growing up songs.

Freddie, my older brother, was really into Nirvana so I tried to get into that, just because you have to follow what your older brother does. I think it’s a mix of everything but definitely there’s a few bands in your lifetime that really stand out and Mumford and Sons came to Exeter and they played at the Exeter Cavern supporting Johnny Flynn and I went along with my boyfriend Woody to watch Johnny Flynn. When the support act came on, we were both blown away so we were looking for them online and there was nothing for ages and the next thing you they’ve got an album launch at Thekla in Bristol. Then we went to watch then on New year’s Eve in London and we saw them right from their roots and watched how they exploded and I just think at the time they burst on to the scene they were so original and I’m so inspired them, we both are.

Hannah – Yeah. And female singers as well; Alanis Morissette…

Abbe – Oh yeah, and Natalie Imbruglia who coincidentally is there (Radio 2) tomorrow. So exciting; we could say we were her support act, maybe?

Allan – I always like to ask songwriters about this; when you write now, how does that process work? How do you create songs; do you have a fixed way of working?

Abbe – Different ways; I like taking things from books, certain words. Part of my degree was textual practices in finding ways to make songs and poetry and taking certain things and linking them together. I’ve got this American verse book that we would take some stuff from. Also, just walking along, if an idea comes into your head, just finding a quiet place to sing it into your phone and record it, so we’ve got little snippets of half-made ideas.

Hannah – Some of them are experiences that we had, conversations written down, so each song is born in a different way. There’s a different story behind each one, we haven’t really got a formula.

Allan – With your songs, I think I said something like this in a review, it’s not just the words or the rhythms, it’s the way they work together. I find that interesting and it feels like a lot of effort must go into that, or does it just come naturally?

Hannah – I think because we teach and we’re constantly playing pop songs, I think we do get used to songs sounding quite samey so I think we work against that and make sure that the melodies aren’t just going with the chords and it’s not just an obvious structure. I think that’s why we don’t come out with a song every day, because we want to make sure that they are different and stand out.

Abbe – I think, as well, not being too precious with what you create because sometimes you come up with a song quite quickly and you sit there going ‘Yeah brilliant, job done. Let’s go and have some food. We’re sorted’. Then you come back to the song in a week and go ‘I don’t like it it’s really happy, it’s really cheesy; let’s make everything minor notes and change it and just play around with it until it works…

Hannah – Until we’re both happy with it.

Allan – And lyrically, some of it’s quite dark and Gothic as well, isn’t it?

Hannah – We’re massive angsty teenagers inside.

Abbe – We played at a wedding a few weeks ago and we always make a point of saying (it’s only friends and things who would ask us to play, and we’re really flattered) that we’re not wedding material; people wants songs they know and people want to dance. So we sat down to write a setlist and we’re saying ‘Oh, no, not that one that’s really dark, and not that one, that’s about a breakup, and that one’s about a horrible person and that one’s really negative’. All of our songs are big and quite punchy but they are quite dark.

Hannah – Positively sad songs.

Abbe – Shiny darkness.

Allan – Ok, and just to finish up on, what’s going to happen in the future. Where do we go from here?

Hannah – We’ll get a call later today with a record deal offer.

Abbe – The head of Virgin’s just tweeted or sent you an email, so we’ll probably deal with Richard Branson later.

Hannah – And Chris Evans is going to manage us personally as well.

Abbe – Yeah, he’s going to open a new label. We’re playing at Looe Festival. We’re playing at Carfest (South) next week…

Hannah – We didn’t mean all that, by the way, that was only joking…

Abbe – But we’re playing at Carfest next week and we’re opening the Main Stage with a few songs, which is brilliant. Jools Holland’s going to be playing there, so obviously we’re going to make that contact as well, so we’ll be on “Later…”, then “TFI Friday” and then we’re set. That’s it, so it’s as simple as that.

Allan – Well that sounds good to me…

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a sneak preview of this one a few weeks ago when we reviewed the lead track, “The Confession”, as a single, but this time around it’s the full four track EP with additional songs “All for the Best”, “The Fear” and “Together Alone”. Previous Sound of the Sirens work has focussed on two voice/two guitar/stompbox arrangements that can be recreated live as a duo, but “All We Have is Time” features upright bass, violin and a little bit of piano, which add a few more colours to the palette. Lyrically, there are a few familiar themes, including breaking or broken relationships and encouragement to fulfil our personal potential, but it’s fair to say that “All We Have is Time” is a step forward into new territory.

We reviewed the stomping, violin-driven “The Confession” a few weeks ago, so I’ll skip over that and start with “All for the Best”. Violin and piano dominate the intro, creating, with vocal harmonies, a very traditional, folky sound which ebbs and flows to illustrate the theme of a relationship which was once beautiful but has run its course. “The Fear” is where the introduction of violin and upright bass has the greatest impact, combining with a very catchy vocal hook to create an uptempo Eastern European feel as the lyrics delve into the attempt to create the perfect physical and spiritual union. Several key changes towards the end of the song ratchet up the tension before the resolution comes in the final phrase, ‘Go all the way’. The final song, “Together Alone” is already a live favourite and it’s easy to see why. The song demonstrates the assured use of dynamics with changes in volume and tempo, and finishes with a show-stopping a cappella ending. Add that to a lyrical message that we should all try to transcend our limitations and you’ve got yourself an anthem.

When you listen to Sound of the Sirens, you hear two voices which work really well together (they do homophony and counterpoint beautifully); they have a tremendous understanding of the construction of songs and live performance, but they also write lyrics which reference the darker themes found in folk music and stories. “All We Have is Time” is a pretty good introduction to the Sound of the Sirens, but you should do two things: listen to their album “A Long Way to Fall” and make an effort to see them play live. You can do the first one any time and their next live appearance will be at Chris Evans’ Carfest this weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

 

To round off the mid-term report for 2015, we thought it would be good to have a look at some of the people we’ve discovered this year. Some of them are relatively new and some have been around for a while but they have one thing in common; they’re all very good.

We heard about Mollie Marriott last year when she did backing vocals (along with Izzy Chase-Phillmore) on Jim Stapley’s debut album “Long Time Coming”. She’s had a couple of singles out (“Ship of Fools” and “Transformer”) and the first album’s just about ready to go. She’s been collaborating with some exceptional songwriters and her live band (Johnson-Jay Medwik-Daley, Sam Tanner, Alex Reeves and Henrik Irgens) sounds stunning. Top that off with a voice which can do the pure pop, but has a raw, soulful edge as well and you’ve got something a little bit special. The only way is up.

Discovering Sound of the Sirens earlier this year was proof that turning up for the support band can pay off. They supported Mad Dog Mcrea on a few dates earlier this year, including The Half Moon in Putney and they were superb. Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood create a huge sound with two voices, two guitars (or guitar and mandolin) and two stompboxes. If you insist on attaching a genre tag to Sound of the Sirens, ‘twenty-first century acoustic anthems’, is pretty close to the mark; it works for us anyway. But don’t just take our word for it, in the last couple of months, Abbe and Hannah have played at Glastonbury, have secured a BBC Introducing slot and are appearing at Carfest. And they’ve got a new EP out.

The guys in Jupe are Dublin-based and they’ve been together for a while, but now that their line-up has settled they’re just starting to get the attention that their anthemic soul/pop/rock really deserves. The Riot Squad saw Jupe at a showcase gig at The Garage in Islington a few weeks ago and they were the band that got the entire audience on their side. The sound is contemporary and commercial but it’s backed up with rock-solid musicianship and a charismatic singer who knows how to work a live crowd. The single “Rocket” is out on August 3.

Hannah Aldridge released her jaw-droppingly good debut album, “Razor Wire” in 2014; it’s a collection of intensely personal songs written from the perspective of a writer who has walked the darker side of the street. She toured the UK recently in support of the album and won over audiences with her stripped-down solo versions of the album material, including a storming version of “Howlin’ Bones”. The album and the live performances of the “Razor Wire” material alone would secure Hannah’s inclusion in this feature, but there’s even more. During the show at Green Note, Hannah played a new song called “Gold Rush” which held the audience in hushed awe. If the rest of the next album is even close to the standard of “Gold Rush” it’s going to be an album to grace anyone’s collection.

Three years ago, we were seriously impressed by Natalie Duncan’s debut album “Devil in Me” and her stunning live performances. Things went a bit quiet following the initial promotion for the album and the major label deal didn’t really work out, but Natalie’s a strong character and a formidable talent; she’s been working on new material and, over the last year or so, she’s been playing to a mixture of album material and new songs to appreciative audiences all over London. The new songs from her “Black and White” EP are much more edgy than her earlier material, using vocal loops and samples as part of the backing tracks and they seem to be attracting a new audience to augment her original following. Anyway, she’s sounding better than ever and you should give her a listen.

And, if that’s not enough to be going on with, there are a few other bands that you should keep an eye on. Black Casino and the Ghost release their second album later this year, Space Elevator’s brand of theatrical melodic rock is attracting wider attention, The Jar Family are reaching wider live audiences with their well-crafted songs and energetic gigs and Jim Stapley (Mollie Marriott collaborator and astonishingly powerful rock singer) is working in New Orleans on new material for that difficult second album. By the time you’ve checked out all of those, we’ll be doing the year-end review.

It’s June, the sun’s shining and we could all do with some good news, couldn’t we? Well, how about this? Riot Squad favourites Sound of the Sirens have only gone and got themselves on the bill at Glastonbury this year, so high fives all round for that, but it gets even better. They have a new EP out on July 20^th and a single from the EP released on July 3^rd. Apparently, they’ve even persuaded online retailer ASOS to support their Glastonbury appearance, so it’s all going off at the moment. So, what about this single then?

“The Confession” is a great choice as a lead track; if you haven’t heard Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood before, this is a pretty good introduction to their work because it displays most of the elements that make their live and recorded performances so beguiling and spellbinding. Abbe and Hannah’s voices blend perfectly whether they’re creating perfect harmonies or quickfire call and response passages and they create a huge dynamic range from two guitars, two voices and a couple of stomp boxes (plus a little bit of violin on this song); and that’s before you even start to think about the lyrics.

Sound of the Sirens songs, in true folk tradition, often have a dark, mystical narrative but “The Confession” does more than tell a twilight story; there’s a genuine poetry to the lines: ‘And I am reaching, breaking mirrors in the sky, pulling starlight out of the corners of your eyes’ that’s truly beautiful. “The Confession” is yet another twenty-first acoustic anthem from Sound of the Sirens; it’s three and a half minutes of perfection.

The single is released on July 3 followed by the EP on July 20. If you can’t wait that long why not have a look at this excellent live video to see what all the fuss is about:

 

I’ve got to be honest about this; this gig doesn’t really have a downside. You get to listen to new music, go to see bands, take photos and meet and interview some really interesting people; and that’s just when things are going reasonably well. Sometimes you get lucky and a band’s better than you expected and, very occasionally, usually when you least expect it, you hear something that just pushes all the right buttons. I had one of those moments last week when I went to see Mad Dog Mcrea and had the incredibly good luck to see a support set by Sound of the Sirens. They were so good that it would be pretty rude if I didn’t tell you about their debut album, “A Long Way to Fall”. It was released in 2013, so I’m a little bit off the pace here, but I’m hoping that Abbe and Hannah will forgive me for that.

Based in Exeter, Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood have been working together as Sound of the Sirens for over six years now and recorded “A Long Way to Fall” at Terry Britten’s State of the Ark studio in Richmond but, enough about that, it’s time to get back to those buttons. If you can press the ones marked good songs, good vocals (even better, harmonies as well) and interesting instrumental arrangements, then you’ve got me, and anything else is a bonus. Abbe and Hannah did all of that live, so I couldn’t wait to hear the studio version.

If you’ve looked at the top of this piece, you’ll know how many stars I gave the album, so there’s no point trying to build up the suspense; I love it. So what about the good songs button? There isn’t a bad or even average song on the album; they’re all very good and some are exceptional. Actually that’s the wrong way round, most of the songs are exceptional and the rest are very good. It’s all very personal but, for me, “The Night Before”, “In This Time”, “Anything Less”, “Up to the House”, “The Gift” and “Faith in Fire” are all examples of great songwriting. Not that there’s anything wrong with “Afraid of the Dark”, “Who We Are” and “A Thousand Words”; they’re very good songs.

There are a few themes running through the lyrics; most of the songs are about relationships, whether it’s failed or failing relationships, or even ghosts of relationships and bring in references to jealously, blame, self-delusion and manipulation which are ultimately counter-balanced by strength, self-belief and independence. It sounds unlikely from the raw materials, but the overall message is uplifting, despite the elemental imagery of darkness, water and flames running through the songs. The album’s opener, “The Night Before” sets the tone with its tale of a relationship falling apart and descending into jealousy and recriminations; it’s dark, but it’s painfully honest as is “In This Time” which explores the tensions between self-reliance and accepting the need for love and affection.

What about good vocals then? Well, Abbe and Hannah both have fabulous voices but the wonderful thing is that they complement each other so well; they both have pure, powerful voices and Hannah has some folk intonations, while Abbe has a slightly more husky pop/rock sound. Anyway, it works; the default setting is harmonies that work well to build up the texture of the song but the texture of the two voices also creates some hairs-on-the back-of-the-neck moments. From the gentle homophony of the final verse of “Anything Less” to the homophony and counterpoint of “Afraid of the Dark” and the counterpoint about three minutes in to “Up to the House”, it’s genuinely spine-tingling.

You might think that you can’t get a lot of variety and dynamic range out of two people with instruments, but Sound of the Sirens aren’t having any of that. Yes, you get the quiet, introspective two voices and two guitars thing, but you also get some variety with Abbe’s mandolin, and the stompbox and kickdrum (Hannah and Abbe respectively) allow them to move swiftly up through the gears from cruising to full throttle and turbo between and within songs. “A Thousand Words” is percussive throughout in a bit of a Proclaimers way, while “Who We Are” is almost ska/folk punctuated by a very nice call and response section and “The Gift” begins with an ethereal a cappella intro before building up to a rhythmical climax and dying away again with an a cappella outro.

“Faith in Fire” closes the album and it’s a perfect way to go out because it pulls together all of the strands of rhythm, rhyme and harmony that make Sound of the Sirens such a compulsive attraction. The lyrics are dark, Gothic and elemental (imagine a twenty-first century Cathy and Heathcliff) and the song builds from a gentle finger-picked guitar backing and quiet solo vocal through the introduction of the harmony vocal and the gradual pick-up of tempo through the bridge to the repetition of the word ‘told’ which brings in both guitars and percussion at full throttle before a percussion and a cappella breakdown. And then it builds back up again to huge finish on ’Dancing on the mess that we made’. And if that three minutes and twenty-one seconds of magic hasn’t dragged you through the emotional wringer, then you have no soul. I haven’t heard a song I love this much (recorded and live) in a long, long time.

If you want an album packed to the rafters with twenty-first century acoustic anthems, then you’ve definitely come to the right place. Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood have a chemistry that’s almost impossible to resist, and why should you want to resist? You should buy the album and keep an eye on MusicRiot for tour dates, because you really need to see Sound of the Sirens live. Enough is never enough.

 

“A Long Way to Fall” is available now as a CD or download on the band’s website.

Ok, life lessons for music lovers part two. First, don’t just turn up to watch the headline band; not all support bands have paid to get on a tour, some of them are actually there because the headliners like them or just because they’re good. That was certainly the case with Sound of the Sirens (that’s the temptresses who play enchanting music, not the minor third you hear before an emergency vehicle knocks you down) at The Half Moon. Second, if you’re watching bands at smaller, independent venues, buy something at the merchandising stall. The band’s probably playing for peanuts (if they’re being paid at all) and buying their CDs or memorabilia means that they actually get some kind of income and, let’s face it, they probably need it a lot more than you do.

So, rant over, what were the bands like? Brilliant, thanks, I’m done. What, more specific? Ok, bloody brilliant.

No seriously, Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood (Sound of the Sirens) are from Exeter and they claiming they’re stalking Mad Dog Mcrea on tour. Abbe plays guitar and mandolin, Hannah plays guitar, both sing beautifully and it’s all underpinned by kick drum and stomp box percussion. They shift the mood from happy to sad and back again through the set and they sound equally at ease with the slow, reflective songs and the barnstorming foot-tappers. What they also have is a gently charismatic stage presence; there’s a lot of self-deprecation but it doesn’t hide the fact that they’re very, very good. The playing is spot on and two voices complement each other perfectly whether they’re singing harmony or counterpoint. There you go, I’m happy and the headliners aren’t even tuning up yet.

I’ve heard some really good things about Mad Dog Mcrea, I love “Almost Home”, and I’ve been looking forward to this gig, but how do you follow a support band after they’ve put in a storming shift like Sound of the Sirens have? Well, you could have most of the band starting up on stage while the singer makes an entrance through the audience banging a bloody great drum. That would do it; we’re off and running, but how do you describe what happens when Mad Dog Mcrea hit the loud pedal?

Well, at the risk of repeating my colleague Klare, I think a teamsheet might help. The team is Michael Mathieson (guitar and vocals), Dan Crimp (whistles, flute and vocals), Jimi Galvin (bass), Dave Podmore (banjo, bouzouki and vocals), Pete Chart (drums and percussion) and Nicki Powell (fiddle). The instruments hint at a folky, Celtic feel and that’s part of it but there are an awful lot of other elements in there as well. You can hear jazz, gypsy and eastern European, klezmer, bluegrass, country and bit of straightforward rock and pop all mixed together and marinated in bootleg hooch until its effects are wildly unpredictable. Now that sounds like my kind of night.

It’s no surprise that there isn’t a setlist; the band likes to respond to requests and shift direction if that’s what the audience needs so what we get is a selection of songs from “Almost Home” (the tempo-shifting “Heart of Stone”, the banjo-led “You Can’t Find Me”, the infuriatingly catchy “Cher” with its clever lyrical references, “Almost Home” , “The Sound” featuring Suzie Mac on backing vocals, and the Rory Gallagher cover – not that Rory Gallagher – “Mad Dog Coll”) and a few old favourites like “Raggle Taggle Gypsy”, “Climb a Hill”, “Little Black Fly”, “Am I Drinking Enough?”, the Richard Thompson cover “Bee’s Wing” and “Pikeys Killed my Goldfish”.

But even that isn’t eclectic enough because, on top of all the musical references that are dropped in, there’s a cover of “The Devil Came Down to Georgia” showcasing Nicki’s fiddle playing (with a sneaky reference to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”) and a medley starting with “The Bare Necessities”. After ninety minutes of that, the band and the audience are drained and you can see why the band have built up such a fanatical following; the audience don’t know what’s coming next but they know that the band will give everything until the show’s over (and way beyond if we didn’t have music curfews), night after night.

This was easily the best headliner and support I’ve seen in ages. Just don’t ask me how I felt when the alarm went off at 5:45 this morning.

“Almost Home” is out now on God Dam Records Ltd (GDR004). CDs and downloads available from Amazon and downloads from iTunes.

“Sound of the Sirens” CDs and downloads available here.