Elle Mary & The Bad Men share moving single ‘Undead’, via Sideways Saloon/Kartel Music Group.
A Welsh singer made in Manchester, Elle Mary started writing just as a way to cope with a breakup, and soon found that she could use this talent as a way to face bigger things in life. Moving from folk to ‘heavy noir’, Elle Mary developed her craft and learnt to control her emotions and write in a more reflective sense. By balancing her inner conflicts, to create an atmosphere where silence is as important as the melody itself, she manages to create a powerfully subtle and unique tension that slightly tugs at the heart of her and The Bad Men’s acoustically-webbed slowcore minimalism.
‘Undead’ is a perfect example of this. The song is about her father, whom she lost to cancer in 2014. She says: “I appeared to be ok on the outside, for a while. I got to this point though in my grief where I realised that I had been behaving as though I was going to see him soon, that his death was just this phase that would be over eventually and I’d see him and then I realised I wouldn’t. And then it hit me.”
The song tackles grief head-on, a grief that lies in the core of our being, and it does not by showing force or strength, but by stripping the sound, the message, and the nature of the reality to its bare bones. Just with an electric guitar and a minimalist, accurate arrangement, Elle Mary & The Bad Men paint the picture of hope amongst the great darkness. The song ends with the line, ‘I wait to find you undead / I wait for him to be undead’. If one closes the eyes, it is easy to imagine Charon, the ferryman of Hades, humming this song as he carries the souls of the newly deceased across the Styx.
The new single ‘Undead’ is released now on all digital platforms and streaming services.
Catch Elle Mary & The Bad Men playing live across the summer at the following dates:
12th July | Eagle Inn, Salford (w/ Siobhan Wilson)
27th July | Kendall Calling Festival, Cumbria
28th September – 1st October | Indy Man Beer Con, Manchester
