They’ve supported Florence & Machine, played Glastonbury and just this week made their debut on Later… with Jools Holland, it’s impressive for a band who had relied on building their name through word of mouth on the London music circuit until April of this year. 

Following on from their previous two releases ‘Nothing Matters’ and ‘Sinner, both dramatic love songs, in their latest release ‘Lady of Mercy’ the band professes their love to the religious (and modern feminist/queer) icon Joan of Arc. In a statement the band said “’My Lady Of Mercy’ is about being a girl, a girl looking up at a painting of Joan of Arc for the first time and thinking that she looks so brave and so beautiful that she wants to kiss her. And maybe she also wants to kiss the girl who stands next to her in the school choir… The lyrics explore the anguish of a teenage crush that can only be described through the bloody, carnal language of religious experience.”

The most raw and intense of their releases so far, the chorus features gasping breaths and screeching backing vocals. It’s fun to see the band expressing less control than the carefully controlled verses of ‘Nothing Matters’. The track ebbs and flows with epic howling builds that lead to a choir of voices screaming “strike me through the heart”.  The band have said that their sound is heading somewhere “darker, heavier” and that their main influences at the moment are Nine Inch Nails, PJ Harvey and Roxy Music, however the Kate Bush energy is still present in Abigail Morris’s bellowing gothic vocals.

It’s clear through their styling and lyricism that the band is heavily inspired by medieval aesthetics and stories, with references to arrows, swords and stabbing. Religion is also a recurring theme, often juxtaposed with queerness. The single was produced by James Ford, who has previously worked with Florence & The Machine, Artic Monkeys and The Last Shadow Puppets

Unfortunately their tour is sold out for the rest of this year but they are going on to support Hozier afterwards. Their next UK solo show will be at London’s The Roundhouse in February.