Sorry Break Down New Album Anywhere But Here Track by Track: Exclusive
The post Sorry Break Down New Album Anywhere But Here Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
Track by Track is a recurring feature series in which artists share the story behind every song on their latest release. Today, Sorry break down their new album, Anywhere But Here.
UK rock outfit Sorry have released their sophomore album, Anywhere But Here, today (October 7th). Their second LP is a nuanced and layered effort both in songwriting and production that at times feels like an anomaly. Even in the dreary, bleak moments of the record, a sense of ecstasy manages to permeate through, resulting in an extraordinary project that evokes an array of emotions.
Melancholic and introspective in nature thanks in part to subjects of depression, loneliness, and breakups, Anywhere But Here’s 13-track run is atmospheric, a coming-of-age listen that can play as the soundtrack for the lives of many. But even with the album’s somber tone, Asha Lorenz, Louis O’Bryen, Campbell Baum, Marco Pini, and Lincoln Barrett don’t necessarily need to match the mood sonically at all times.
Sorry tell Consequence that the aim of the lowkey, yet lively “There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved” was to be “a sad-funny love song,” adding, “When we’re out of love we can feel detached and think ‘oh we’ll never be in love again… cry, cry’ but also try and laugh a bit… It’s easy to laugh or think you’ll never be THAT person, but then the next moment you can feel like the loneliest person in the world.”
Not all of Anywhere But Here fits the mold of sorrow. Album opener “Let the Lights On” may have been the last track Sorry wrote for this record, but it serves as an upbeat, euphoric introduction to the group’s latest body of work. “It started off as a dancy song with driving bass and drums and became more poppy when we played it with the band and recorded it,” Sorry remember around writing the track. “It’s a fun love song for the club.”
Throughout the album’s highs and lows on the emotional spectrum, Anywhere But Here is at its best when Lorenz and O’Bryen work off one another with their verses. This is best exemplified on the penultimate track, “Screaming in the Rain,” a sonic embodiment of an emotional numbness coupled with a driving instrumental embracing the anomalous sound of the record.
“The song captures the feeling of being lost in a city or a relationship and trying to figure out how to help that hopeless feeling. Also when we are depressed or lonely, how we can feel quite alien and disturbed. I think it’s quite a middle point of a depression when you’re really caught in the belly of the storm and whirlwind; when you’re still but everything is moving and louder around you.”
The conflicting feelings of somberness, anger, nothingness, and at times, joy, are what make Anywhere But Here a record that stays with you. Whether it be the relatability of their lyrics or the addictive instrumentals, Sorry have a variety of methods to keep listeners enticed through this poignant vessel.
Listen to Sorry’s Anywhere But Here below, followed by the band’s Track by Track breakdown primarily written from the perspective of Lorenz and O’Bryen. The group is also going on tour; get your tickets via Ticketmaster.
“Let the Lights On”:
“Let the Lights On” was the last song we wrote from the album and came out of us trying to find something more upbeat for the album. It started off as a dancy song with driving bass and drums and became more poppy when we played it with the band and recorded it. It’s a fun love song for the club.
“Tell Me”:
“Tell Me” was originally two songs, Louis wrote the intro and the lyric ‘I didn’t know I was like this, I kissed the thorn in which you held on’ and then Asha formed the other ideas to make the full tune. It came together when we played it with the band and merged all the ideas together. It’s meant to be a journey, each part leading into the other but never returning.
“Key to the City”:
“Key to the City” is a song that stemmed from a very specific situation in my life, but that I hope has a more universal resonance. It’s meant as a kind of tender “fuck you” at the dying moment of a relationship you don’t necessarily want to end — when it’s hard to reconcile feelings of anger, jealousy, resentment, etc. with the undeniable love you still have for that person.
That crossover of pride and vulnerability led me to an image of a deer in the headlights. It’s about trying your hardest to retain control when you know you’re exposed emotionally, sexually, spiritually, everything. In the nude of the headlights, in the nude of someone’s love. The song came together after the original recording session and stemmed from Louis experimenting with new tunings to give us a bit of a push. This one has a Nick Drake feel. We wanted it to sound cinematic and lonely.
“Willow Tree”:
“Willow Tree” is a song we wrote very early on in the writing stages of the album. It has a carnival feeling to it, and the returning motif of “let’s go, faint under the willow tree” adds to that repetitive, merry-go-round feel of the song. We wanted this song to sound quite old school, so we recorded it in a very basic way. It was one of the first songs we finished when recording and it definitely set the tone for the rest of the album. It draws influences and inverts “Pull My Daisy,” the Allen Ginsberg poem as well.
“There’s So Many People That Want to Be Loved”:
“There’s So Many People…” is supposed to be a bit of a sad-funny love song! When we’re out of love we can feel detached and think ‘oh we’ll never be in love again… cry, cry’ but also try and laugh a bit… It’s easy to laugh or think you’ll never be THAT person, but then the next moment you can feel like the loneliest person in the world.”
“I Miss the Fool”:
“I Miss the Fool” is a breakup song with a lot of tears and smiles and yearning. It is kind of as direct as “Let the Lights On.” Sometimes you don’t know you have a good thing ’til it’s gone. Calling your love a goddamn fool, but then ultimately learning that they were your fool. Learning to let go and see freedom in change. It was more minimal at first, the bass and the lyrics were written as the skeleton.
The operatic sample at the end added an element that made the song come alive in its own special way — lonely and yearning, dramatic love. It’s funny, it was written after a first breakup, and I thought I would never feel the same about anyone. Then, I had a relationship and listened to this song again after that and it welled the same emotions and taught me a new lesson: that it’s not necessarily the specific person that we love, but the emotion between us and the feeling that they brought within us.
“Step”:
We like the journey that “Step” takes you on. It’s a post-breakup song. “Step” is another more upbeat song we wrote for the album. It has a kinda tap-dancy vibe to it in our heads — with the twangy guitars and simple beat, it makes for quite a fun backdrop, although the lyrics present a more sombre atmosphere.
“Closer”:
The lyrics in “Closer” came quickly in one gulp. It felt as if I was talking through quite a few people that had hurt me and me hurting people, too. It’s about the person that we are made into sometimes by experiences or desire, and the shame that comes with that. It also is about addiction and the circular spiral of its pattern, rotating and returning. We wanted it to sound like a song from an NYC band in the ’90s and the sound developed from there.
“Baltimore”:
This song is more dark and it all builds up to the end like a big wave gathering steam to crash. I feel like it keeps you in a specific place swaying in it.
“Hem of the Fray”:
This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek song — more of an idea and mirage. Wrote in the summer when I was lonely and everyone else was watching the World Cup.
“Quit While You’re Ahead”:
We wanted to use this catchphrase at the head of the song, but also use it ironically. Madness can be when we repeat things thinking we are going to get a different outcome. I always get stuck on this idea. I wanted the song not to progress too much, but to repeat this lyric and at the same time just throw it away like one does when we are obsessed… or whatever you want to call the hook really.
“Screaming in the Rain”:
“Screaming in the Rain” came together when Louis and Asha had two different ideas that came together very well. The demo we originally made for this tune was one of the best we did in the runup to the album and following that, this song has taken many different forms. We decided on its current shape as it fitted the best within the album and has immense feeling behind it.
The song captures the feeling of being lost in a city or a relationship and trying to figure out how to help that hopeless feeling. Also, when we are depressed or lonely, how we can feel quite alien and disturbed. I think it’s quite a middle point of a depression when you’re really caught in the belly of the storm and whirlwind; when you’re still but everything is moving and louder around you.
“Again”:
“Again” is purposely the last song on the album as we wanted it to sort of be a cleanse: rebirth, but also a bit sad. The “Again” lyric holds on to one note. Although you want it to change, it just wallows on, mimicking a mini death in cumming, in real death screaming and coming into the world at birth.
It’s like this similar feeling, a note like water repeating on and on in different forms. Like the sea or a lake or rain — it’s all water, it’s all death, but life in between experiences making way for a new city and swell of experiences. ALBUM 3 bitch.
Sorry Break Down New Album Anywhere But Here Track by Track: Exclusive
Joe Eckstein
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