EP Review: FERGUS - 'Three Of Swords'
FERGUS honours his truths on his introspective second EP ‘Three Of Swords’ out now via Goldun Egg Records.
Produced by Jake Gosling, FERGUS’ ’Three Of Swords’ is comprised of six elegant tracks juxtaposing reverie and restlessness. ‘Three Of Swords’ marks a progression for FERGUS both as a singer-songwriter and as a person. It’s a self-examining and ultimately self-affirming EP as FERGUS externalises his innermost thoughts and feelings and takes back his power through reliving past anguishes, inadequacies and moral injustices.
‘Hoping, Keeping’ opens the EP with a vintage, romanticised allure in its minimal arrangements. FERGUS’ vocal is dreamy and washed out as he lets us in on his touching stream of consciousness lyrical delivery, seeing him in a crisis of confidence in the poignant lyrics, “I pray for forgiveness”. The track soon grows bolder alongside the resounding mantra, “hoping to find some courage” before gliding into ‘Zelda Mae’.
’Turn Gold’ takes a more contemporary twist with punchy drums, pairing fluttering, shiny textures with darker undertone, combining the magic of a forest setting in its lyrics and sonic textures with a love bitterly and resentfully run dry and the track ends just as abruptly. ‘Submarines’ is a plucky and short, nostalgic interlude concerned with how we rewrite our own histories to suit our own narratives and can be our own biggest deceivers.
’Too Much’ seeps beauty and melancholia in equal measure; a compelling cut that gives ample space for the true magnificence of FERGUS vocal and intelligent lyricism to connect with its listener, before fleshing out with stunning expanding and contracting emotive orchestral touches. EP closer, ‘Not Enough’ is arguably the most magnificently dark track on the EP. It moves with a jagged infectious groove, doggedly closing the EP leaving its listener hungering for more with a burning intensity in the pits of their stomachs.
Words of Karla Harris
Fergus live dates:
August 2019
23-25.8 Big Feastival, Kingham, Oxford
September 2019
23.09 Northern Guitars (Open Mic) LEEDS
24.09 Ship Inn (Open Mic - headliner) LEEDS
25.09 Bootleg Social (Open Mic) BLACKPOOL
26.09 Chemic Tavern (Open Mic, headliner) LEEDS