Listening to New Pagans latest, now from the confines of quarantine, is like stumbling across a mini soundtrack to a life destined always for eternal isolation. New Pagans have consistently had a knack for narrating the mundanity of everyday life; a quality more potent and emotional than ever in these dark days we find ourselves confined to. What better way to spend your new endless day than tumbling into their world of dark alt-rock.
‘Admire‘’s ethereal melodies are haunting, slowly building from twanging guitar parts into a soundscape accompanied by biting word play and delicate angelic vocals. Lyrically, you can’t help but feel New Pagans knew something before the rest of us, about the current state of the world; “Let’s preserve our old ways. Our frail ways. Our fading beauty. Our old ways”. The band have captured perfectly the zeitgeist of yesteryear and an entire world that’s been forced to hit the pause button before spiralling too much further out of control. Even listening to Admire through a doom tinted lens, there is still hope to be found, as vocalist Lyndsey McDougal assures us, “we don’t give up so easily”.
Everyday may be exactly the same but this is cinematic. ‘Admire’ is crushing, yet fittingly tender in all the right places. This is art; designed perhaps all along to help navigate the “blizzard inside all of our teeth” as we watch our old ways fade into memory.