Courting Create A Sonic Whirlwind With ‘After You’

Liverpool’s own Courting are back with ‘After You’, the second single from their upcoming third album ‘Lust For Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side And Tell A Story’’, which will be released March 14th on Lower Third. 

‘After You’ follows the atmospheric tones set by their previous single ‘Pause At You’- giving a taste of what’s to come on the eight track record. A wall of distorted guitars and drums swirl around you, with front-man Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s heavily compressed vocals cutting through the mix and lyrics that focus on the album’s theme of anxiety and paranoia. 

On the single, Murphy-O’Neill writes,“‘After You’ was the first song that we wrote for Lust for Life. It is an exercise in direct songwriting, an attempt to create something very straightforward. We wanted the wall of guitars and the drums to feel almost hypnotic. A lot of the album is about the idea of duality, and lyrically – the song can be read in either a stalkerish voice or a romantic voice. It’s all up to you.”

The song delivers an instant impact and that hypnotic feeling the band creates carries throughout the entire  two minute 28 second runtime. The atmosphere makes you feel like you’re spinning, caught in a whirlwind that’s building pressure. The world moves around you, but you’re stuck, drifting in suspension. An unsettling feeling of unease constantly builds and the band bursts under the repeated lyric “Can we split off in groups of two?”. The swirl of anxiety-driven layered guitars makes the single so easily repeatable. You can play it back to back five times and it’ll feel like a single listen. 

Courting have already proven themselves to be staple in the UK indie landscape with their first two records, but with their third album, they are subverting expectations to include more experimental textures and sounds. So far it's creating a bold, impactful sonic whirlwind.

 

Matt Wellham

 @mattwellham

Image: Charlie Barclay Harris 

 

If you enjoyed reading this article please consider buying us a coffee. The money from this pot goes towards the ever increasing yearly costs of running and hosting the site, as well as our monthly "Writer Of The Month" article prize.