Child of The Parish’s previous single ‘Midas Touch’ was completely atypical while also having an alluring accessibility. It made for a magnetic moment that took their unpredictable songcraft to new listeners, landing airplay from Jack Saunders at Radio 1 and Anne Frankenstein at 6Music, alongside playlists at Spotify (The Other List) and Apple Music (Alt-Pop).
Now Child of The Parish take another innovative step towards their upcoming second EP by sharing the new song ‘Forever’s Not Enough’. Like ‘Midas Touch’ before it, the song’s strength comes from wriggling free of any conventional genre expectations. It jumps into life with bouncy, house-meets-disco beats, which provide a pulse to support the alt-pop production embellishments (layered harmonies, pitch-shifted vocals) and throwback ‘80s synth-pop nostalgia. And just when you think you know what to expect, it changes gear again with jangly, indie-esque acoustic guitars.
While the sound is overwhelmingly euphoric, its ambience is countered by the existential questions posed by its lyrics. The things that make life the experience it is are by their very nature impermanent. If everything is fleeting, what can you do but make the most of the moment?
Child of the Parish commented, “Forever’s Not Enough is the second track from our new EP. It’s a story of unrequited young love, a well-trodden but still upsettingly fertile musical ground. I write a lot to visuals, and for this track, I quite often had footage from Richard Ayaode’s 2010 film Submarine playing, so maybe some of the bittersweet emotion bled in from that. Some songs have quite a definite structure and vibe when they appear, and some you just follow down bizarre rabbit holes, this is definitely the latter! It’s almost three songs in one, and the combo of dance elements, guitars and leaps between sections sums up a lot of what Child of the Parish is about”.
Listen to ‘Forever’s Not Enough’ – BELOW:
Brothers Ben and Tom Vella call on a wide range of influences for Child of The Parish, mixing psychedelia, dance, rock, indietronica, disco, R&B and much more into a sound that isn’t dominated by any one genre. The two producers and multi-instrumentalists made a strong strat with their debut EP ‘Make It Better’, which exceeded 5 million streams despite being released entirely independently. That’s when Jack Saunders first supported the duo, his Radio 1 play soon complemented by further support from Lauren Laverne at 6 Music. ‘Before The Moment’s Gone’ became the EP’s biggest track, its profile elevated by its inclusion in FIFA 20.
Lockdown naturally slowed their initial momentum, but undeterred the duo instead had the time to focus on the intricacies and experimental flourishes that makes their new music so impossible to pigeonhole. Now they’re planning to return to live shows, with a four-piece band mixing visceral rock, dance euphoria and theatrical set design to create an ambitious live experience.
A key component of the Child of The Parish vision is their striking visuals, which were created by the ‘Stranger Things’ graphic artist Pius Bak. The duo’s music is expanded upon with an accompanying graphic novel, which uses Bak’s art to tell a story written by Ben Vella and Richard Brown. It serves as the origin story for the project’s central character Jacob and commences in the rural village of Otherley in 1630, where the consequences of the witchcraft trials end up reverberating again almost 400 years later. Jacob is a difficult, unsettling, silent infant and grows increasingly dangerous as the years pass – posing a substantial risk to this otherwise tranquil middle-class town.
The story is inspired by the folklore of the small town in Hertfordshire that Ben lives in. It plays upon parallels between the witch hunts of the 17th century and the trial by social media that’s prevalent today.
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