It’s coincidental that I should pick up on this debut album from Esbjerg-based DRAEYER,which was released on 23rd January, exactly a week after writing about Bellefolie’s ‘Beautiful Madness’ because the two share similar interests, namely loneliness and alienation, accentuated in DRAEYER’s case by dysfunctional relationships, social inequality, climate change and war.
Collectively, they fret that the world has been “set ablaze” (but we didn’t start the fire) both on a personal and societal level.
Blimey there is enough material here for a social workers’ convention and more angst to ponder in one song than Springsteen imagined in an entire career.
But I draw the line there at jesting because they do have something positive to say rather than merely carping from the sidelines as some choose to do, and that is evidenced by, in their own words, “reaching out to those who feel alone, frustrated and powerless, to let them know they are not on their own.”
That’s a worthy mantra to live by and reminds me distinctly of Carter USM, a duo fashioned out of the run down council estates of gritty Southeast London in the (Prime Minister) Margaret Thatcher years of the early 1990s, who sang of urban life and social decay, dodgy landlords and property developers evicting the old and sick from their dinghy apartments for a Trump-like real estate deal, child abuse, racism, alcohol dependence and suicide, with dark humour and irony, all gleaned from their observation of daily life, writing poetry that turned into indie rock music.
And all of it to convince the dispossessed that their demise would one day be over and that until then they are part of a grand fraternity.
Before anyone gets excited I am not comparing DRAEYER directly with Carter (or Bellefolie for that matter). They don’t sound anything like them for starters, in fact they don’t sound like anyone I could readily compare them to. I’m saying merely that they share a common social bond, and one I am happy to see still exists.
I chose ‘Hurry up and wait’ (I love oxymoronic word play like that; apart from it being so Carter-like it reminded me of Ronald Reagan’s immortal “Don’t just do something, stand there”) for no better reason than that it was a teaser single before the album release.
It is a long piece (all nine of the tracks are, you certainly get your money’s worth), over seven minutes, and if I understood the lyrics it concerns the folly of rushing through life in pursuit of happiness, only to find yourself waiting for fulfillment that may never come and especially where lurve is concerned.
Or “Little girl, please don’t wait for me/wait patiently for love/someday it will surely come” as Diana put it.
Musically it is a slow burner to an insistent bass line that drifts from indie pop towards rock (they are notable genre benders), suddenly exploding exactly half way through to a tremendously powerful supernova of a thing.
Writer and singer Sofie Drejer has all the attributes and power of Trembling Bells’ Lavinia Blackwall and while they refer to influences like Radiohead and Sigur Rós it’s that Scottish band that I hear more in this piece (think of ‘Christ’s entry into Govan’).
And that is no mean analogy to end on.
(Continues after the Spotify link)
DRAEYER consists of:
Sofie Drejer: Vocals
Nicholas Topp: Guitars and Keyboard
Ann-Kirstine Hansen: Violin
Kristoffer Kock: Basses and Keyboard
Anders Vase: Drums and Percussion
Find them on:
Facbook: https://www.facebook.com/p/DRAEYER-61566662127335/?locale=en_GB
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/draeyerband/
Bandcamp (track): https://draeyer.bandcamp.com/track/hurry-up-and-wait
