Album Review: The Orielles – 'Only You Left'
The Halifax-formed, Manchester-based indie band return for their fourth record: the ornate, dynamic, boundary-pushing Only You Left.
First coming to prominence with their charming indie pop debut Silver Dollar moment eight years ago, guitarist Henry Wade and the sibling duo of Sidonie and Esmé Hand-Halford have in fact been close collaborators for over 15 years now. Channelling the same stripped-back, song led approach of their early origins whilst consolidating the bold experimentation of their 2022 LP Tableau, Only You Left sees the band stretch the famously amorphous genre of indie to its limits, incorporating electronic elements, post-punk stylings, math rock-y moments and shades of shoegaze. As a trio – the most traditional of all band structures – The Orielles defy limits or boxes, forging a sound that’s definitively expansive yet distinctively their own.
The album’s origins lay in a near year-long series of intense writing sessions from May 2023, beginning with a newly purchased freeze pedal forming the heavy drones prominent on opener ‘Three Halves’ and standout single ‘Wasp’. In Henry’s words, “you’ve got to die and be reborn between albums”, and this process involved meticulously refining each track crafted by the three-piece act. Only You Left was then indelibly shaped by the material space it was recorded in: a cold, clinical studio in Hamburg, Germany and a sparse former carpet factory converted into a studio on the Greek island of Hydra. In the case of fourth track ‘Ember’, the Hydra studio’s resonant frequency of E was drawn upon to shape the song, which ends repeating “only you left, only you right” in a powerful album title-dropping moment that typifies the album’s exploration of contrasting dualism.
Continuing this theme (or perhaps a reason for it), bassist and lead singer Esmé Hand-Halford is at once the band’s singular lyrical focus and its low-end anchor. Her breathy, soft vocals tend to effortlessly float above a cacophony of noise below, infrequently slicing through these layers of cymbals, snares, guitars and droning pedalboard effects. Entering the third section of the meandering ‘Three Halves’, a track born from three stitched-together demos, Esmé’s voice transitions from a husky mumble to front-and-centre, wide and piercing, yet drifting still into reverb-soaked shoegaze territory just as quickly as it emerged.
Describing the album, drummer Sidonie unveils one of Only You Left’s defining features: its weaponisation of mournfulness and longing, both in instrumentation and lyricism. “We maybe wanted to subconsciously disguise this album as something that felt more light and easy on the ears. But it’s much more melancholic. It’s not a deeply sad album. It’s just leaning into the beauty of sadness a little bit.”
This beauty of sadness is an ever-present across Only You Left, from the stately, resigned instrumental opening of ‘Tiny Beads Reflecting Light’ to the beautiful, haunting vocal duet between Esmé and Henry on the sombre and hopeful ‘The Woodland Has Returned’. By the second half of the album, its focus on a contrasting dualism becomes clearer between the heavy riffs and potent disjuncture of ‘Wasp’, shifting hybridity of ‘All in Metal’ and lowkey, folk-tinged ambience of ‘Whatever (I May Not Feel So Close)’.
‘Tears Are’ is built around a half-phrase, an ambiguous question posing parallel contrasting answers. “You could think of something deeply human,” Esmé says of the track. “But you could also answer it in a completely linguistic sense and think of a tear as a symbol or an image.” The track’s acoustic-centred closing offers a tender denouement in contrast to the mean, sludgy guitar it opens with. When Henry’s electric guitar and Sidonie’s drums burn out four minutes into the song, a mysterious ethereality settles in. Muffled and barely audible at points, Esmé whispers “Tears I’m saving, in time / And are you saving, mine?”
The album’s grandest moment comes with the provocatively titled ‘You Are Eating A Part Of Yourself’. Building a feeling of dark euphoria, the song gradually envelopes the listener in a vast cinematic soundscape of glitchy feedback, sampled vocals and bristling percussion. After three heavenly minutes, the wave finally breaks, replaced with just soft piano and Esmé’s final visceral words about the self-devouring nature of change.
“You are eating a part of yourself
In perfect pieces to digest
You’re choosing a side you don’t really like
Chewing until nothing’s left”
Ambiguous, unsettling and masterfully constructed, there are louder, more intense, and indeed more complex tracks across the ornate and diverse record. But this song is lasting; it sits with you. And that’s the mark of a true classic in the making, and a future live favourite for the Manchester band.
After attracting new fans across the country whilst supporting English Teacher last Autumn, The Orielles set out this week on an intimate instore tour, with a landmark headline gig at the ICA in London scheduled in June. Their trend-defying music creatively renewed once more, Only You Left is a reminder to look beyond the binaries of the world; a reminder to find your third half.
Words by Taran Will
