Eight years ago, The Orielles released their debut album Silver Dollar Moment. It combined shoegaze and indie pop, making something wildly exciting at a time when indie music felt like a lot of artists doing their best impressions of those from years before. The albums that followed seemed to stray from the path of shoegaze-infused indie rock, instead traversing through the motions of funk on 2020’s Disco Volador before diving into full-blown experimental mode on 2022’s Tableau. In comparison, Only You Left finds the trio made up of sisters Esmé Dee and Sidonie Hand-Halford and Henry Carlyle Wade making a full circle return to the sound of their debut – except this time it feels more polished and detail-oriented than before.
Recorded across two studios, one on the Greek island of Hydra and the other in Hamburg, Germany, each setting had its own influence on the sound of the album. The space in Hydra was an old carpet factory and the one in Hamburg had a more clinical feel to it, this gave the group the idea of categorizing the music they wrote for this album into wood (for Hydra) and metal (for Hamburg). The influence of these two vastly different settings can be felt in every track.
Although it’s not entirely obvious which studio was home to which track, it is easier to apply the wood or metal metaphor to some more than others. The tracks that fall into the ‘metal’ category here feel easier to spot: “All in Metal” the most obvious here, where Esmé’s vocals are hypnotic and soaring violin cuts in to carry the listener through this dreamscape. Meanwhile opener “Three Halves” goes full throttle back into the shoegaze-tinged indie rock sound of their debut, crashing drums characterise the track before a distort pedal comes into play. There’s a sense of urgency to it that exists elsewhere too, there’s anxiety inducing building strings on “Shadow of You Appears” whilst “Embers” adds some texture to the sound, the unease is still there, this time present through pops, clicks and odd percussion.
There’s a feeling of darkness that cloaks much of the latter portion of the album; “The Woodland Has Returned” feels the most melancholic. Built on jangling guitar, it feels huge and sprawling with Henry Wade’s vocal adding some extra depth to that of Esmé Hand-Halford’s. Something The Orielles have also become quite good at is embracing the weird and wonderful, there’s a building sense of impending doom that lies within “You are Eating a Part of Yourself” which feels fitting for a track about the all-consuming nature of change.
As with the rest of their discography, The Orielles once again prove that you don’t always have to follow along with the masses to make good music. In fact, they prove that staying true to yourself and what you think is right when it comes to your art, pays off wholeheartedly.
