Glasgow/London duo Sacred Paws return to the fold after a five year hiatus, announcing their new album Jump Into Life for release on 28 March via Rock Action Records (Merge in North America). In addition they share a first single entitled ‘Turn Me Down.’ The duo of Ray Aggs (Trash Kit, Shopping) and Eilidh Rodgers (Golden Grrrls) take their roots from the punk world and wound it together with myriad influences, from Afrobeat, through pop and post-punk, to create a glorious and unique hybrid.
‘Strike A Match’, the band’s debut album, was released on Mogwai’s Rock Action label in 2017 and won the prestigious Scottish Album of the Year Award that same year. That success was quickly capitalised on with the band’s second LP Run Around The Sun, which was released in 2019. Ray and Eilidh deciding that rather than force the work, they would take as long as they felt they needed to produce the album they knew they were capable of. Jump Into Life, the lush and layered new album is proof that such a journey was both necessary and significant. Formed of eleven new songs, it takes the roots of the Sacred Paws project and breathes fresh life into it, blossoming into something both abundant and more colourful than has come before; a gentle skewing of their signature sound that feels wildly thrilling.
Late last year first single ‘Another Day’ introduced the thematic thread, of remaining positive in the face of heartbreak, that weaves throughout the record and it breeds affection the more explicitly it reveals itself – both in sound and sentiment. It’s a theme that continues on today’s new single ‘Turn Me Down’ – a track the band say is “about the rawness of rejection” where the refrain “do you even feel the pain?” juxtaposes against jubilant handclaps and guitars that burst with vitality. They add:
“It’s something I reckon everyone feels at some point in their life – those moments when however irrational it might seem to feel so deeply the feeling is still there. It felt cathartic to write a song about it with quite dramatic rhythms and a big vocal melody.”
Sonically, The track ripples with the unyielding spirit of their more recognisable African and roots influences, the vocal harmonies again lending the track a world-weary edge that allows the whole thing to linger long after the song is wrapped up. “
“We really loved working on the vocal melodies for this song,” they say. “The harmonies took a while to figure out as it’s not something we have done a lot in the past but the singing added something really epic. The lyrics are so simple and raw that it really needed to pack a punch as a song.”
Though Sacred Paws never really took a break from writing during the time since their last record, for a band that have always thrived in the tangible real world, the restrictions imposed by being constrained to Eilidh’s flat led to a stagnation that they were happy to wait out, to not let it get the better of them. It was a relocation to Mogwai’s practice room that sparked the album’s genesis, the pair soon excitedly listening to sketches and demos in the car, to and from the studio space, pinpointing the spark they create together, finding it pouring out of the crackling car speakers and into the wider city that was once again opening up.
Having been so patient for so long, Ray and Eilidh found form in that sudden lightning-bolt of inspiration and brought together the songs that would make up Jump Into Life with a wide-eyed, thrilling sense of abandon. Such honesty is reflected in the finished record, the band embracing a more open-hearted sincerity in the songs rather than hiding such sentiments behind their more characteristic riffs and rhythms. Personal catharsis through music is nothing new, but Sacred Paws attack their own demons with a gutsy, characterful heft across Jump Into Life. It’s still every bit as infectious and vital as what’s come before but it funnels those moments of heady release through feelings of heartbreak, healing and renewal. The band expand, sharing:
“It’s definitely a Sacred Paws record but it feels a bit older and wiser,” the pair explain of their new chapter. “We took a few years working on the songwriting and pushed ourselves creatively. We wrote a lot in that time, but we made sure every song had something that we fell in love with.”
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